


The Unresolved: Between Then and Now

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Series: Unresolved Ever After [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Anti Hook, CS is never endgame, Eww, Ficlet Collection, Zelena's here too, lots of family stuff, tags to update as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2018-10-10 14:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 38,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: A lot could happen in ten years. A lot didn't happen, too, but a lothadhappened nonetheless, for better or worse...





	1. Belle Decides To Stay On The Jolly Roger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not anti-Belle at all, this is her mindset at this point in time: Super suspicious. With reasons. But--Oh just read the thing and decide for yourself.

If you asked Belle why she accepted Killian and Emma's idea of moving onto the Jolly Roger instead of a bed at Granny's, she didn't think she could give you an honest answer. But oddly enough, no one was asking really. Except Archie.

"Didn't he try to kill you on that ship?"

The Jolly's galley wasn't exactly stocked. Not unless Belle was in the mood for rum (no thank you, not while pregnant,) and hard tack biscuits. (No thank you, not ever.) So she walked off the ship and made the walk to Granny's Diner twice a day, for morning and lunch, until she could get around to grocery shopping. No fridge or microwave or running water meant she'd have to be creative...

"Belle?"

"Oh, uh," Belle smiled distractedly, looking up from where she was picking at her fries. She was craving mayonnaise, just straight mayo, and Granny hadn't even blinked when Belle awkwardly requested some in a cup to dip her fries in. "Sorry. Pregnancy brain. I uh...well that was different, he was trying to hurt Rumple."

Archie looked at her with concern, enough that it made Belle very uncomfortable.

"So...it's okay?"

"Well, he's apologized..." Belle neglected to say for what. In her heart, it didn't matter. That Killian had apologized for something he did wrongly, (whether she remembered it or not,) meant a great deal to her, and went a long way in smoothing any unease she felt. "And I need as many allies as I can get, with Rumple acting the way he is."

Again, Belle didn't clarify that as, _"What he could potentially do."_   So far Rumple had given her space, hadn't begged for another chance, hadn't made any nefarious schemes that endangered the town or town persons. But her son had seemed so sincere in the dream world-

"And you aren't just using Hook as an ally because...that would hurt him?"

"Hurt him?" Belle repeated, not getting his meaning for a moment. Oh. _That_ him. "I...no."

Archie was probably the kindest, sweetest man in Storybrooke. He was a terrible liar, a loyal confidante, a judgement-free listener. But...he could see through a lie in a second. And Belle's hesitation didn't fool him at all, she could tell from the way he was looking at her.

Because until that moment, Belle hadn't actually taken that into consideration: She agreed to hideout on the Jolly Roger, Hook's ship,-which had carried away Rumple's first wife who had also thought him unworthy,-because she thought she needed the protection...and because it would hurt him most. A room at Granny's would have been a more sensible choice. She would have had access to hot and cold running water without drama, she would have been able to eat without leaving her new residence, she would have Granny to talk to, (who was probably the only person in town at the moment Rumple would second-guess fighting with to get to her...) and something to do besides sit and read.

Belle loved reading, but sometimes, you needed to do more than read.

Not to mention the morning sickness, and how the various supplies Hook kept below deck were just strong-smelling enough to turn her fluttering stomach. She was never more than ten steps from a sick bucket since she'd come aboard two days ago...

Except if she did move to Granny's, then she'd be right across the street from Rumple.

That was the problem with her library apartment, too. Actually, she'd gone there first, but had found that in addition to thick layers of dust, there were bird nests in her empty bookshelves, mildew staining around a cracked window that must've broken one freezing night some time ago, and at least one raccoon that stared at Belle from the top of her filthy sofa like _she_ was intruding.

Her apartment was no longer an option.

And neither was Granny's, if she wanted to be strong. And she had to be, for their son. Unless Rumple made some serious changes, unless her earned her forgiveness, this was the way it had to be.

"This is the way it has to be," she insisted, and Archie didn't argue.

He didn't _agree_ , she could see it in his eyes, but he didn't argue. Archie wouldn't guilt her to let Rumple back in, but-

"If you ever want to talk about it," he smiled, rising from the table and putting down enough money to cover both their tabs. "You know where to find me. Right?"

Belle forced a smile and thanked him.

She knew she'd never go...she didn't need therapy, she just needed some time to herself...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "hurt like I hurt" mindset is not a healthy one, but I can understand that from Rumbelle at the start of Season 6, y'know? It's just the way it felt like a stick smacking you week after week and tried making Rumpelstiltskin look shitty and Belle look like a victim that irks me. She is not anyone's victim except when the jackasses decided to kill her to "get" at Rumpelstiltskin. Stop treating her like one, OUAT writers, not only isn't it working, it makes you look like jackasses yourself. Thank you.
> 
> On a more cheerful note, I've got one more ficlet ready to post (*cough* anti CS *cough*) but if you have any questions or prompts for this span of time, drop one in the comments, or hit up my Tumblr ask box here: **http://of-princes-and-savages.tumblr.com/ask**
> 
> Please bear in mind I cut off from canon long before the Evil Queen sucked faces with Rumple, and before Hyde died. Because I'm almost more mad about that than the Evil Queen, because WHY WOULD YOU KILL A CHARACTER YOU HYPED SO HARD SO QUICKLY INTO THE STORY? Thank you for reading this long, long note. :)


	2. The Jones-Swan Engagement...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some warnings if you please:
> 
> There are mentions of off-screen deaths in the first paragraphs, and one more graphic death featuring blood. The I'd classify the proposal as being dubious in consent by nature of Emma's mindset and blood-alcohol content. Also some vomiting after that, and maybe a blink-and-you-miss-it warning about drunk sex if any of that is an issue for you.
> 
> Those are my warnings, I felt icky writing it, so I want everyone alerted to the issues.

Hyde's defeat had cost five lives: Three had been Storybrooke citizens that Emma hadn't even known the names of, killed in the rubble of a ruined building that had injured four more. Those were the losses she felt more personally. Those, and how one of the injured victims was a child that had almost lost their leg and would walk with a limp only slightly better than Gold's for the rest of their lives.

The last two lives had been Hyde himself, and Henry Jekyll. At some point, Jekyll had realized that he and Hyde were still two halves of the same person. So had Hyde. And paranoid that Jekyll would work against him, Hyde sent out minions to find the doctor, so they'd hidden him in the police station. Somehow Jekyll got his hands on one of their firearms.

When Emma had been confronting Hyde in what was turning out to be a messy battle because of his immunity to magic, and Emma had lost a lot of her sword-fighting abilities when she took up magic, it had been shocking to have Hyde suddenly stop, his eyes go wide, and a hole open up at the top of his head in a bloody burst.

They found Jekyll on the floor with a pistol tumbled out his hand, a bullet fired from under his chin up through his brain.

Regina hadn't done anything so dramatic with The Evil Queen. Well, not suicidal, at least. She'd charged her darker half and latched on in a bear hug, until they melted back into one person again. The Evil Queen was locked in the one place she couldn't hurt anyone anymore: Inside Regina.

And that was all well and good, but there were still dead people, grieving friends and family, ruined properies, wounded victims, henchmen left to deal with, people from the Land of Untold stories to place; Their work wasn't over.

But the way people were partying it up in Granny's, (and outside in the street,) you'd think it was all over and victoriously won. It was freeing in a way to celebrate the end of the bloodshed. A little too freeing. As the night wore on, the family crowd went home and the alcohol came out.

Henry had gone home with Regina, earlier. He said something about not wanting to leave her alone now that she was whole again, and she felt the whole pain that came with losing Robin all over again. An emotional Regina coming home to Zelena, who had tried to cross them again, and Robin's baby? Henry was smart to go with her. Emma's parents had gone home, too, after squeezing Emma hard, so there wasn't really anyone left here but her, Killian, and faces rapidly blurring together she didn't want to talk to.

Belle, who couldn't drink in her _condition_ , had probably dragged Gold and his short hair to the party, but they'd left after Moe had pitched a fit in front of everyone. Moe had left, too.

The dwarves hadn't even shown up, which Emma noticed halfway through a drink she'd lost count of. They never turned down free alcohol, especially Leroy, but they weren't around. They hadn't been very friendly towards Emma or her parents lately, probably still steamed over her stealing Happy's axe. She'd given it back...hadn't she?

She must have, she decided, not wanting to think about it anymore. Because nothing hurt now, and the weight that had been pressing Emma down since...since a long time, was gone. Hyde was gone, the Evil Queen was handled, the town was safe. Everything was okay.

So when Killian dragged her away from the main party down the quiet hallway between the diner and the B&B, and snogged her hard for a few minutes, Emma had felt high on booze, her True Love, and freedom. High enough that when Killian pulled back, all she could do was feel happy to be alive.

"Will you marry me?"

Emma blinked. "What?"

"I know it's sudden," Killian grinned rougishly. "I know I haven't even asked your father-"

"He's married to my mom!" Emma gasped.

Killian gave her another kiss. "No, no no, love, I mean, y'know, traditionally I'd ask you father for your hand in marriage, his blessing, but...well...I want _you_ to say yes. You're happiness is more important than his in this matter. What do you think?"

What did she think?

It was _hard_ to think about this, really. Just moving into a house together seemed so far out and surreal, a sudden change that seemed like a dream in the farway realm of Camelot...weeks ago. But marriage? Emma had never given marriage a single thought beyond, "There's no one I want to marry." Once, she'd dreamed of having it all with Neal. Her Tallahassee. She hadn't expected a house with a yard and dog, but since "home" was a yellow bug, any place to throw down roots would be a castle. The kind of castle Henry had once suggested with all his bright, childlike optimism where she, he, and Neal could all live.

But then Neal died...

And then here was Killian.

He never seemed the marrying kind, honestly. She couldn't understand why Killian would want to give up the relationship that was constantly evolving and shifting between them in favor of such a big leap as marriage. But then...in his own way, Killian was a gentleman. A rougish, rakish kind of gentleman, the Enchanted Forest's equivalent of a bad boy with a heart of gold, she supposed. And...and it did make sense, they were going to live together now, they loved each other, she'd gone through hell to get him back.

"What do you say, Swan? Ready to give us a happy ending?"

Despite Emma's dizziness and breathlessness and that spinning sensation under her feet, like the ground was spinning beneath her, she could still plainly his blue eyes. He was waiting for her answer, with that smirky smile, and his hand against her back, pressing them together. For him, she was his happy ending. And she had grown up thinking her parents hadn't wanted her, (untrue, of course,) had been passed through foster homes like an ugly antique no one really wanted to see, had lived her whole life before Storybrooke being left behind and the one picked because you were out of options.

The idea of being someone's happy ending, especially someone she loved and wanted too?

"Yes," she nodded, giddily. "Yes, I do."

The rest of the night was a blurry blurry blur. She had way, way too much to drink and lacked Killian's mighty liver, and dimly recalled stumbling for the bathroom at four in the morning, (naked, of course,) and puking the mostly liquid contents out. She oddly remembered flushing the bowl before she collapsed back in bed beside her snoring boyfriend, and didn't wake up again until the sun rudely beamed in her face.

She felt so guilty when Killian brought her up a tray with breakfast on it, then, and kissed her forehead, saying, _"Good morning, wife."_   and she couldn't remember what he was talking about.

"Uh...did we get married last night or...?"

Killian chuckled, nudging a glass of what looked like tomato juice and contained more than a jigger of something alcoholic for her hangover.

"Not _quite_ yet. Though I find it insulting you forgot you were engaged to one of Storybrooke's most dashing citizens," he grinned, waggling his eyebrows. "I thought about buying you a ring from the Crocodile just to see the look on his face, but then, I think I could do you better than a ring probably ripped off some poor woman's finger. Think we ought to go ring shopping when you're ready to face the day, or tell your parents first?"

There was only one person that didn't congratulate Emma when the news spread quickly. The next day, Tinker Bell had shown up at her front door with her lips pressed in a thin line and fire in her eyes.

"When did he propose to you?" she demanded without preamble.

"What? What does-"

"Was it the other night? When you were drunk enough that you couldn't walk straight and had to be carried out the diner?"

"It was before that-"

"Before that in the night, or before that day?"

"What are you getting at?" Emma scowled.

Tinker Bell's throat flushed pink, and her eyes hardened. "What I'm getting at is that Captain Killian Jones there has a nasty, nasty habit of plying women with alcohol to get what he wants. And all he's wanted for a long time is you, but that's only because he likes a challenge."

The very insinuation, if Tink was insinuating rape, or even just that Killian only liked her as a "challenge," was so abhorent to Emma that all she could do was gawk at the green fairy. Tink took this as a chance to carry on;

"I'm not saying you're in the wrong or that you don't know your own mind, or anything of the sort, but are you really going to marry a man who saw you were so out of it and still pressed his suit-"

"What the hell? Are you speaking from experience or something?" Emma snapped, not noticing the look of shame on Tink's face. "I love Killian! He would never hurt me like that! And he loves me for who I am!"

Tink narrowed her eyes, looking at Emma like she was some malfunctioning device, before shaking her head.

"He broke down those walls of yours real good, huh?"

And the statement was so clam, so matter-of-fact, that Emma didn't have a single response. Tinkerbelle left the property, but her words stayed behind. And to this very day, Emma couldn't understand why, or what they _really_ meant...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *scrubs at the ick on my person*
> 
> I'm sure that an ideal, realistic CS proposal *spits on the ground* would be somewhere in the (sober) middle of this and canon. I do see Hook pressuring/guilting Emma into accepting because he's an entitled shit before everything else and probably thinks he deserves Emma as a reward after all the shit that's happened to him. (Regardless of whether or not he asked for most of it.) And I see it working because Emma is so burned out and scared of losing what she has that _of course_ she must sacrifice her own needs to give Killy-Willy everything he wants...gross, it's just gross.
> 
> Have some requests or suggestions? Go here and offer them!: **http://of-princes-and-savages.tumblr.com/ask**


	3. Granny Finds Out Where Belle's Staying...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because why wouldn't Granny react negatively to a pregnant woman staying on a sleazy pirate's ship? Credits to Joylee for the idea!

Something was very wrong...and Granny wasn't sure what it was. At least not until she Belle was coming in for lunch and dinner, sometimes breakfast, and she wasn't staying in the library apartment anymore.

Everyone knew/assumed Belle was done with Gold, again, but Granny didn't know where she was staying. She wasn't coming across the street from the library when she came in for breakfast, and she didn't head there when she went "home" after dinner. Gold hadn't darkened the diner, so he was giving her space. If nothing else, Granny would give him credit for that: When Belle said "no" he gave her a wide berth before she was ready to talk. Or not. But then Granny noticed Belle lugging a bag full of laundry over to the laundromat and a lightbulb went off. She delivered Archie's omelette when he arrived at the diner the next day, and fixed him with a look that cowed Ruby at her most rebellious stage.

"Where's Belle living right now? I know she's not at the library..."

Archie paled. "Uh...th-the Jolly Roger-"

"Hook's ship?! Good god, she-Doesn't she-I can't even...you!" Granny snapped, jabbing a finger at a senior waitress. "Keep this place from burning down until I get back. I have to go!"

Armed with her crossbow in case any of Hyde's friends were stupid enough to cross her this morning, and a paper bag holding Belle's usual order, Granny Lucas stomped down to the docks. She marched up the gangplank and onto the deck, and Belle emerged with a look of confusion on her face.

"Granny? What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to ask you the same question young lady!" Granny snapped, pointing her crossbow at the deck. "What the hell are _you_ doing _here_? You literally come to the diner everyday, and there are _rooms_ right behind it!"

Belle swallowed, folding her hands over her stomach. "This is the safest place for me-"

"You are _pregnant_ _on_ _a boat_ , _by yourself_. What about your apartment over the library?"

"A window got broken or something, it's not fit for anyone but the birds and raccoon family living there anymore..."

"You'd still be better off in a sleeping bag on the floor. At least then you'd have power and running water, and you wouldn't have seasickness conflicting with your morning sickness!"

Belle fidgeted, like a child caught in a lie. Granny eyed her from head to toe. She looked a bit pale, some dark circles under her eyes. Her clothes were clean and unwrinkled, her heels lower than usual perhaps in deference to the growing baby, and her hair wasn't greasy. Somewhere she was getting a shower then. She looked tired, whether emotionally or because she couldn't sleep, though? Granny heard Emma complaining about her beds at the inn, but a modern mattress of any kind would be an improvement over whatever glorified stuffed sack of a mattress Hook could have had aboard this ship. Or a hammock...whichever he had.

(Personally, Granny had heard enough about Hook that she wouldn't touch any sort of sleeping surface he'd used, thank you.)

Granny didn't think Belle would stay on the ship. She had her apartment, (which wasn't liveable of course,) and a girl as friendly and helpful as Belle surely had some friends she could...actually...no.

As kind, sweet, clever, and loveable Belle was, she was still the consort of the Dark One to the townsfolk at large. No one was willing to see she was her own damned person but a handful of people. And if she and Gold weren't on speaking terms? Well, nobody would be stupid enough to cross the Dark One by sheltering his wife while she was carrying his unborn child...

And Granny would bet every ounce of oil in her deep fryers that Hook was only putting her up because it would get under Gold's "crocodile" skin. That man could whine all day long about Rumpelstiltskin, but Captain Hook still drank like a fish when the opportunity arose and never missed a chance to hurt someone. Whatever changes he'd made for Emma must've been when no one else was looking. And Granny Lucas would be damned if she let a pregnant, vulnerable girl like Belle end up getting hurt because of that pirate's vendetta against her husband.

"I don't...I don't have anywhere else to go. I can't go back to my father...we...we sort of had a row about that already..."

Belle's eyebrows knit together, her hands moving back over her flat belly.

Granny didn't know what Moe French said. But it didn't matter because he was out of the picture. Bastard.

"How's your stomach? I brought you some breakfast."

Belle nibbled at the toast while sitting on a bench on the docks. Granny had her crossbow across her lap, waiting until Belle had finished one triangle of toast before proposing her idea:

"You can't stay on this ship-"

"I can't leave. Rumple won't mess with me while I'm here, I'm sa-"

"Sweetheart," Granny said gently, patting Belle's knee. "This is about your physical health before that man's agenda. How's your morning sickness, really, on this floating wreck?"

Belle made a sour face that said it all. "More like any-time-of-day sickness, really..."

"And that's going to dehydrate you sooner or later. Come to think of it, there's no fresh water, either. And no shower, no power, and is whatever you're sleeping on really going to be comfortable once that little one starts showing?"

"I...no. No it isn't," she admitted. "It's not very comfortable now. But...if I move in with you, Rumpelstiltskin will be right across the street."

Granny patted her crossbow, then.

Belle actually giggled, looking a touch less stressed.

"Granny, I don't doubt you're a fine shot with that, but it won't work on Rumple-"

"Oh screw him. If you're that worried about your ex storming the bed and breakfast, we can have the fairies fortify the place. What sort of protections has Emma set up on the ship?"

Belle bit her lip. "Um...none."

Granny frowned. "But they do come around to check on you, don't they?"

"Sort of..."

"Belle. If you're trying to convince me, or yourself, that this is the place you need to be; You are doing a _terrible_ job of it, darling."

She nodded slowly, taking a deep breath, her narrow shoulders squaring. She twisted on the bench to face Granny, and looked a bit more like herself than she had for the past week.

"Do you have an available rooms?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Granny smiled. "You finish your breakfast, and come over whenever you're ready."

"Thank you Granny...I appreciate it. A lot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay but seriously: If the Herocrites had been checking in on Belle daily or had warded the ship against Rumple, that would be less asinine. As it stands, looks like they just left the pregnant girl alone on a boat and washed their hands of it. A room at Granny's would have at least meant Belle was _actually_ protected instead of stranded in the harbor...seriously. -3-'


	4. Gold Sees Zelena At The School...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This incident is referenced in Chapter 10 of the parent story, and was requested on Tumblr. This takes place at the start of fourth grade when Snow became Oliver and Neal's teacher, about four/four-and-a-half months after the Black Cauldron, shortly before Zelena was incarcerated.

The school year had only been in two weeks when Snow realized that she was going to have a problem: One named Oliver Gold.

Oliver had turned nine in May, although he was still the smallest child in class. He was also, in Snow's opinion, one of the most troubled kids she'd ever worked with. Which wasn't surprising, given recent... _circumstances_...

The Black Cauldron incident happened in May of this year. A pleasant, late spring-early summer sort of day. Hardly the day for the undead to riot through the streets and change lives forever. They still didn't know who had activated the Cauldron, but there was strong evidence supporting Gold as an innocent for once.

Killian still held out Gold had an accomplice, or helped, but Snow didn't quite agree. The more she thought about it, the more it didn't make sense for Gold to do that, not when he hadn't gotten Oliver or Henry somewhere safe first. So, she let the matter drop.

That didn't change the fact that Oliver was still a problem, though.

Snow suspected Oliver always had a chip on his shoulder just from being the son of the Dark One, even if he wasn't living with and was supposed to be separated from his father until further notice. Belle didn't trust Gold as far as she could throw him, and Snow hoped this time she would just go ahead and file for divorce. They were only married on a piece of paper now, it wouldn't be much of a difference, and it might be better for Oliver to put an end to that nasty, repetitive cycle of disappointment anyway. At the moment, Oliver was lashing out at other children left and right, over the course of summer he'd only played with two kids, Leroy's daughter Opal and Tink's son Garrick, both of whom were...problem children in their own way. Garrick was a sweet boy, but simple and easily distracted, and Opal was...she was prone to lashing out, too.

Today it had been Oliver lashing out though. In the interests of keeping some semblance of peace until their parents arrived, Snow had asked Oliver to sit outside the classroom while Robbi Mills sat _in_ it.

Today's incident had something to do with some of the girls on the playground, Snow wasn't sure which, picking on Opal's looks. While she was a very vibrant girl, and not ugly, Opal was heavier than some of the girls. Not exactly fat, but sturdy, strong. To be expected, Snow supposed, given how none of the dwarves were exactly slender. But Opal seemed happy with herself...but sometimes children just tease, and bully, and it been one of those days.

To Snow's understanding, Robbi Mills didn't have many friends. She mostly played with either Neal or Ruth and their friends, but lately, she'd been making headway with Garrick Booth. That was nice, but Garrick's two best friends were Oliver and Opal, who were very mean to Robbi. They didn't give her a fair chance, and today when Robbi had been trying to befriend Opal with some well-meaning advice about her looks, Oliver told her something along the lines of taking a broomstick out her...butt. Now, Snow didn't know the whole story because at the time she'd been too busy trying to keep them from coming to blows when Robbi snapped at Oliver to go jump in the Black Cauldron, and frankly, she didn't care _who_ started the fight so long as it was finished.

Robbi sat jiggling her foot, slumped down at her desk eyeballing the clock on the wall after school while they were waiting on her mother to get here, and Belle, and finish this feuding. Robbi wouldn't talk to her, so Snow didn't try to make conversation.

She had paid close attention to Robbi before she'd entered the fourth grade. She wasn't autistic or developmentally challenged, Snow felt confident in that much. Robbi wasn't much for making eye contact and had trouble with social cues, her behavior imitating whoever she felt was in charge around her. Actually, if Snow had to guess...

"What's all this nonsense about?" Zelena sauntered inside, nodding her head back towards the door. "What's with the sour-faced boy outside?"

"Hello Zelena, have a seat," Snow said, trying o remind herself it had been almost a whole decade since Zelena had been a threat, that she had changed, that she was a mother now just like Snow was...and that as a mother she had the right to raise her daughter how she saw fit, even if Snow had been disagreeing with it for the better part of the last calendar year. "There was a bit of trouble in the hallway today and I think it's time we had a little talk about it-"

"Has that boy been picking on my daughter?" Zelena curled her lip, glaring at the wall like she could burn Oliver through it. "That's not surprising, his father doesn't make for much of an example."

"I...I think I sort of started it..." Robbi mumbled, looking down at the toes of her mary-janes tapping against the floor.

"Nonsense, sweetpea, don't be silly," Zelena clucked, patting her daughter's hair. "I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong. Tell your mummy what happened?"

It was, perhaps, a bad sign that Snow hadn't noticed this habit Zelena had until Robbi got out the hospital after the Black Cauldron. The first time she'd noticed it had seen Robbi asking her mother if she could play at Garrick's house over the summer, and Zelena had stroked her hair and said, _"Now don't be silly, we must be getting home."_   Something about the way she talked to Robbi invalidated the little girl's emotions to Snow's ears, but, there wasn't anything she could do about it. She'd have to ask Regina to keep an eye on it, maybe.

"Well," Snow cleared her throat. "Today there was some sort of hostility between Robbi and some other children, do you know Opal?"

"That rough little half-blood girl?"

"Er, yes, that's her...I suppose..."

"I was, um, I was telling her..." Robbi gestured to her blonde hair. "I was telling her is she did something with her hair she'd be a lot prettier. I don't know why she'd grow it out if she'd just let it stay there like a messy mop falling over her shoulders."

"Yes. That," Snow nodded. "And Oliver responded...quite rudely. We're just waiting on Belle to get here now so we can talk about this-"

"What's there to talk about!" Zelena crossed her arms. "I think it's obvious enough that boy needs a lesson in manners. You'd think getting cut off from his imp of a father and living with his librarian mother would teach him to keep his rude little mouth shut."

Snow had been thinking something similar, but hearing in from Zelena sounded...bad. But, then, Zelena was an upset mother right now. Snow would probably react the same way if one of her children where in Robbi's place.

Glancing at the clock, Snow wondered where Belle was. She was never late, except for today, apparently. Five minutes ticked by, Zelena looking more imptatient and Robbi looking smaller with each passing second. Finally, Snow heard some voices outside her classroom door, and went over to see who it was. It didn't sound like Belle...because it was not.

Gold.

Snow's first instinct was to pull Oliver inside, but he was to far, and Gold was almost-but-not-quite standing in between the door and the boy. Oliver had shrugged into his backpack and was looking very much ready to flee the scene, but Snow was determined to end this infighting in her class and had to put a stop to that.

"Hello Gold," she said, hoping for conversational instead of mildly panicked. "What are you doing here?"

Gold turned on his heel in a fluid movement that harkened back to the old world for a moment, folding his hands over his cane and wearing a cool mask as he regarded Snow. If he could just be a normal person, sometimes, Snow thought his reconciliation attempts would have gone better with Belle. How on earth could she could along with a man that moved like a stage performer and loved mindgames?

"Belle called Henry. She has a doctor's appointment and asked Henry to pick Oliver up, but Henry has a flat tire on the other side of town. I was given _permission_ to be here," Gold explained, slowly, precisely. So patiently it barely masked impatience. "What's this about, Mrs. Nolan, other than you keeping it a secret why you haven't released Oliver from school this afternoon?"

Snow would much rather have had Belle here. The diplomatic parent. But...she supposed when it came to his son, Rumpelstiltskin could be sensible. Okay. Okay, so why not? She could do this.

"A little disagreement I'd like to keep from repeating," she said, putting on her best smile as she opened the door for them. "Oliver responded very negatively to things someone was saying to one of his friends, and it sort of escalated from there."

She _didn't_ see Oliver roll his eyes when he shuffled through the door first. Snow then walked back to her seat at the desk, so she _did_ miss the way Gold stopped dead in his tracks and the color drained out his face.

All Snow saw was Gold standing in the door, frozen, staring with an emotion she could identify on his face while Zelena turned towards him. The minute the witch saw who it was, she rolled her eyes and put on a false, sour smile.

"Why am I not surprised it's you?" she snorted dryly. "Well, have a seat and let's get this over with, _doll_."

"What is-Why is she-" Gold swallowed thickly, his hands curling into fists a moment before he moved forwards and caught Oliver by the shoulder. "No."

Snow blinked. "What?"

Gold tugged Oliver closer to him, free hand curling over Oliver's thin shoulders. Even his son looked a bit confused, Snow was very confused herself, but Zelena-

"What's the matter?" she snickered. "Let's _talk_ about it, Rumple. C'mon."

"I said no, and that's final," Gold said sharply, pulling Oliver out without every turning his back on them. "We're leaving."

"Wait!" Snow stood up. "You can't just do that! We need to talk-"

"This is not about talking-"

"This is everything about talking!" Snow hurried towards the door Gold and Oliver had already passed through, and had now started walking down the hall. "Don't you care that you're damaging your own son with this behavior?"

Gold stopped short.

Oliver faltered, looking from his father to Snow. He didn't look worried, per se, more like he was wondering why his father had stopped moving. Gold turned around and fixed Snow with a look that made her heart stop. Cold and burning with anger, his eyes drilled into Snow's and she couldn't move.

"You don't know me, dearie. You don't _care_ to know my son," he said, his words dropping like chips of ice. "As I have yet to sign a piece of paper legally preventing me from making choices regarding that son, or having a right to pull him out of a sham of an after school meeting, you neither have the right to dictate those choices, nor the right to try guilting me into staying."

He spun around again, put a hand on Oliver's shoulder, and left.

It would seem his word was final.

Snow sent Robbi and Zelena home, then, since there wasn't much point in their staying any longer. Zelena poofed them home, too, and for a moment Snow envied their way of getting around traffic.

Then she called Henry.

"Henry? Why did Belle let Gold come to school? He just took Oliver home, we didn't even address anything!"

_"What?"_

"Yes. He left as soon as he saw Zelen-"

 _" **Zelena?** Grandma!"_ Henry shouted. _"What the hell?! You didn't think to tell me the other parent was the bitch that kept him helplessly locked in a cage for a year?"_

"Henry that was over a decade ago, and Zelena hasn't hurt anyone since then-"

_"Since **then**? Oh, I'm sorry. Did you forget Marian? Robin? That we would have been home from Camelot faster if she wasn't trying to screw us over at every turn? That Robin would still be alive if it weren't for her? Maybe, I don't, know, **my own father?** Gold's first son?"_

Snow pressed her lips together. "Henry, Zelena didn't kill Neal, that was an accident. It was a tragedy but she didn't-

_"Oh for Christ's sake-You know what, forget it, forget it, just leave me the hell alone, I have to get home to see what the damage is."_

Before Snow could ask what that meant, Henry had hung up on her. What damage was he talking about?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice Snow noticed SOMETHING was wrong with Zelena treating Robbi the way she has. She didn't do anything, but she saw it. That's something. Even if she didn't noticed the sheer terror Gold regards his torturer with, and is using the pro-Zelena argument that she didn't *really* cause Neal's death because she didn't do it by hand. This was also the last BIG fight Robbi had with Oliver's group, everything else was little shots fired back and forth that started improving once Robbi started centering herself.
> 
> Gold is magic-powerless here, and that makes author-me sad because my initial plan was to poof him out of there all dramatic. Alas. *pets him gently* Ideas for other ficlets? The next one is looking to be Henry moving in with Gold, but if you have extra ideas, ask here or at: **http://of-princes-and-savages.tumblr.com/ask**


	5. Rumpelstiltskin's First Visitation With Oliver...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare thyself: Baby Oliver and his papa ahead. More to come but BEHOLD NOW.

Rumpelstiltskin had written down their custody agreement verbatim to he and Belle's negotiations: No detail had been overlooked. The open hours of the pawnshop on Friday and Saturday were to be dedicated to his time with Oliver. Supervising currently was Jefferson, who despite what the town's opinion might be, was trusted by both Belle and himself, and was making himself a pot of tea in the back at this moment. Rumpelstiltskin had made the supervision amendment himself to put Belle's mind at ease, since for some reason she acted like Rumpelstiltskin was going to run off with their son the first chance he got.

Like he would put anyone through the pain of losing a child on purpose...

(Well. Fine. Maybe he'd asked for that particular mistrust.)

Everything was ironed out so smoothly that Rumpelstiltskin had forgotten to be nervous about being left (practically,) alone with his newborn son for the first time until he was being carried through the door.

He focused on his irritation that Belle had sent Granny to deliver their son. Irritation at her for not coming, irritation at himself for expecting it, irritation at the old cow that set the baby carrier down on the counter and tried to give him some spiel about _"and it one hair is out of place..."_   that finally made his temper crack.

"Thank you, dearie, but I've done this before with less _help_."

Granny faltered for just a moment, then went very still as she looked at him. "I suppose that's true...Belle's taking a nap. I told her I'd bring Oliver over. He's been fed but there's a bottle in the bag, and maybe a feeding schedule. That's it I think."

This was probably the most civil Granny Lucas had ever been to him. Rumpelstiltskin decided to extend her the same courtesy, nodding politely and thanking her crisply. Granny left then, mission accomplished, and Oliver shifted a little in his carrier, drawing his father's eye.

_Oliver Maurice Gold._

Hated the middle name, but, that Belle kept his suggestion was miraculous enough he could more than live with it. The content of his son's name didn't affect how wonderous this tiny human being was, anyway.

Between Granny and Rumpelstiltskin, he fancied Oliver had enough baby knits to keep him cozy until he was a year old. Today, he wore a little yellow cap, and his cotton onesie was pale blue with white stripes, and small white socks to keep his feet warm. A light blanket was tucked around him, it was August, but Maine had the most miserable weather. At the moment, he was asleep, long dark lashes fanning chubby, rosy cheeks and a tiny pink mouth opened.

Oliver was a tiny, beautiful miracle.

Slowly, carefully, Rumpelstiltskin lifted him out the carrier. Oliver was a small baby, dozing peacefully in his arms like it was natural. For just a moment, though, Oliver made a little squeak, stretching one arm over his head, and then settled back into a comfortable position curled up in his arms.

"Hello little one," Rumpelstiltskin murmured, squeezing his son's delicate hand, a smile lighting his face through the tears welling in his eyes. "Hello. I'm your Papa, Oliver, and I already love you so much..."

Oliver's wee fingers curled, gripping his finger back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made some tiny alterations to facts. Through much number crunching and head-spinning, I've estimated that Oliver's birthday is in May. He's three months old here, (though this isn't the first time Rumple's seen him,) and I'm gonna try to edit all other references to birthdays accordingly. Damnable blurry canon facts...
> 
> *squishes bby!Oliver*


	6. Rumple Proposes Henry Moves In...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the label. Mostly pain free!

It was a rare Friday where Rumpelstiltskin hadn't felt like cooking, so he and Oliver were sitting in the diner at the time. Naturally, almost as if the universe was mocking his inability to keep a normal, healthy family together, Belle was across the diner by herself. It had been over a year since she had decided she didn't want to have her heart broken again, and he couldn't blame her...even if it still hurt.

She sat there chattering a bit with Leroy, who seemed to be waiting on a to-go order. His plucky young daughter, Opal, had sat herself down by Oliver and stolen one of his fries. Fridays were busy in Granny's Diner, as it was the weekend. Families, couples on dates, young people out celebrating...

And then Henry came out the back, through the hallway that connected the inn to the diner, with a bag in hand. He whispered something to Granny and she stopped and stared at him for a minute, then nodded.

"Oliver," Rumpelstiltskin turned to his son. "Why don't you walk Miss Opal back, I think their order's just arrived."

Wiping a smear of ketchup off his chin, Oliver glanced over at Henry. "Are you trying to distract me from some trouble?"

"Eh...more like keep you occupied while I find out what the trouble is."

Opal rolled her eyes, but scooted out the booth. "Parents. Like we won't eavesdrop on you later."

"That is _later_ , Miss Opal, not _now_ ," Rumpelstiltskin smiled. Perhaps it was because she just knew him as Oliver's father, but Opal had never been scared of him, not even a little. "Have a good night."

"Thanks Mr. Gold. C'mon Oli, let's go be occupied."

Oliver picked up his plastic basket with his fries and what remained of his hamburger, and off they went to where Belle and Leroy were at the counter. Rumpelstiltskin got up and went to the back of the diner, down the hall, and watched Henry sign his name in the book on the counter. He wasn't sure what the start of the conversation was, but Granny seemed a bit concerned.

"...trouble at home?"

"Something like that. I just need some time to...to think," Henry sighed, handing her the pen. "Thanks Granny."

"No problem honey, just get yourself a good night's sleep."

"Thanks," Henry nodded, and at that moment he saw Rumpelstiltskin standing in the hall and jumped. "Whoa! Uh, hi?"

Granny shook her head, bustling by him with a brief glare. "The Dark One. Hmph. More like the Sneaky One, slinking around the place like a cat and scaring me half to death. I'm old dammit! I've already had a heart attack, I don't need another one."

Rumpelstiltskin let her by.

Henry shifted from foot to foot nervously. "So...um...how much did you hear?"

"Enough that I suspect you aren't hear because of a rat infestation. Does this have anything to do with why you and Violet left work early?"

"Um...yeah. Yeah. She...might be...she might be, or maybe is...pregnant?"

Oh.

_Oh..._

"Mm. And am I to presume...certain parents did not take this news well?"

Henry was two months from turning twenty-one. He was a responsible lad, had a good head on his shoulders, better confidence than Rumpelstiltskin had ever had, he and Violet were a strong, honest couple. It was a shock, but not ultimately the worst scenario. There were also options in case they decided they didn't want to keep it, depending on how far along Violet might be-

"My moms lost their _shit_ ," Henry groaned. "I think it went downhill when I told Emma to shut up. Don't do that."

"Never. Does Violet's father know?"

"Well yeah, I took her home crying. I don't think he's happy, but he didn't scream at me so it was an improvement. I just need some space from all...of them, right now. Violet and I are going to talk about our options in the morning."

"Good, good," Rumpelstiltskin nodded, that was very sensible. "You take the day off tomorrow and get it sorted out. Good luck."

Henry smiled, looking like part of a great weight had slid off his shoulders. "Thanks, we will. See ya Grandpa."

Saturday, Henry called to blurt _"she's not pregnant!"_ and say he'd be in on Monday. Sunday the shop was closed and Rumpelstiltskin stayed at home, but on Monday morning Henry came in looking a bit less sanguine, carrying a newspaper with listings circled in red ink. He was dressed in a suit for work, but his mind was on other business.

"I'm looking to move out of my moms houses," Henry said, pausing a moment to make a face. "And that sounds really weird, but, it's true. Your the resident landlord, right? What do you think of these apartments? I don't need anything fancy or big, just, y'know, somewhere I'm not going to be robbed or freezing, or breathing in a new species of mold spores."

Rumpelstiltskin glanced over the listings circled. They were all quite cheap, few of them were his apartment buildings though. His buildings were dry and clean, even if he wasn't responsible for the neighbors. At least two of the three listings had questionable heating, and the third had rats. Big ones. Nope. None of these were acceptable, and even if Rumpelstiltskin could overlook that, Henry's mothers would kill him if he allowed the boy to move there. Hmm...oh. There was a simple solution.

"I pay you rather well, but not well enough to move into something your family or I would be comfortable with," Rumpelstiltskin said. "You've picked a poor time to house hunt, all your peers have snapped up one and two bedroom apartments after graduation to simulate the dorm room experience, I suppose. I have a few rental properties off the top of my head, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for."

Henry made a face. "I'm not sure, either. Maybe I oughta just stay at Granny's a little longer. Or maybe Grace will let me crash with her and her roommate if I ask nicely."

"I suppose so. But if you need a place to stay...I've got the room."

"Oh no, no, I couldn't do that, you don't need me getting underfoot-"

"How would you get underfoot in that great big house of mine?" Rumpelstiltskin snorted. "You can just stay until you've saved up a bit, or until you make up your mind, or whatever it is you decide."

Henry hesitated a moment. "You're sure?"

Well he certainly wasn't joking. There were many reasons Rumpelstiltskin cherished the days Oliver visited, and didn't mind when one of his little hooligan friends came over, simply because his house wasn't so...dead. If he could help his grandson out, and break some of that silence, it was very much an "everyone wins" situation. Probably one of the fairer deals he'd ever made, honestly. And he shouldn't be any trouble to Henry, either. His depression and anxiety was very well managed on that pill Hopper had prescribed, he was a good year and a half into therapy and a lot more comfortable in his own skin. What wasn't there to be sure about?

"Quite."

"Well...I'll think it over and get back to you," Henry said slowly, smiling brightly. "Thanks a lot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rumpelstiltskin's voice: "There shouldn't be any trouble."
> 
> Narrating Author's voice: "There would be trouble."
> 
> (I will not apologize.)


	7. Henry Moves Out Of Emma's...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because we have it on record one half of Accident and Emergency did say that Hook was not father material for Henry, because you have to be an asshole to throw out someone's food on their plate, and because never should anyone ever get dating advice from the man who gets his victims/dates drunk.

Everyone had fallen over themselves to congratulate Emma and Hook for getting engaged. Henry would have been happy because his mom deserved to be happy...but at the same time...he wasn't. And he did some deep soul-searching to figure out why he wasn't, enough that he felt guilt for his behavior in New York and apologized to Belle and Gold, which led to him reconciling with his grandfather. And that was good. But it didn't quite answer his question. Why wasn't he happy?

The answer was stunningly simple: It was because it was Hook.

Henry had ignored Hook's attempts at giving him "advice" about women when they got back from Camelot because...eww. Henry would rather listen to David. You know, the one with a healthy marriage and relationship. But even when Hook and Emma were married, Henry didn't want to listen to anything his "advice." For god's sake, the bastard threw out Henry's Pop Tarts and tried to make him eat boiled fish for breakfast. Eww.

Emma tried to tell him that Hook cared about them and was just doing what he felt was best, but that excuse wore pretty thin when Hook's patience did the same. Within the first year of Hook and Emma's marriage, it was patently obvious that Hook didn't really care about Henry as long as his mother wore _his_ ring on her finger. The feeling was mutual. Henry didn't give a shit about Hook, as long as he made Emma happy.

Except Emma wasn't very happy anymore. She had to do all the hard work in the relationship, _she_ had to apologize if they had a fight, and _she_ had to make the sacrifices. Two years after their oh-so-pretty wedding day, Emma had stormed over to Regina's house on Henry's week with her and had been livid. Henry didn't know what the fight was about, but it was something to do with Hook coming home three hours late and drunk off his ass.

It should have been Emma's final straw, but, she went back home. Presumably to get a back or break the news, but she ended up staying. And then she got pregnant and while Henry loved his baby sister Cleo, he hated her father. It was bad enough that Hook had to get a job in Emma's office in the first place, but when Cleo was born, he'd tried to get Emma to stay home with her. Everyone let him get away with it by saying he was just old-fashioned, like trying to strong-arm your wife into being a stay-at-home mother was acceptable in a certain time period. It wasn't. Especially not when Emma's own mother had a job.

Emma put her foot down to have this sort of every-other-day arrangement at the station, but Henry had noticed she was still the one that had to take care of Cleo when she was sick or needed something. He'd made the mistake one day of saying if Hook wasn't doing anything, why couldn't he watch Cleo this afternoon?

Hook had cornered Henry in the kitchen later. He'd stood close enough that the hook on his hand looked just this side of threatening.

"Let me explain something to you, lad. Emma is my wife, and Cleo is my daughter. They're _my_ responsibility, not yours. You? You don't even pay rent."

"I'm seventeen, not a boarder."

"Oh, you're seventeen? When I was your age I was a cabin boy on a ship, but you? You just live with your mums and scribble in a notebook. Obviously you must do _something_ right or that Violet wouldn't have taken you back, but that doesn't change that you're lucky Emma wants you around here. Now what makes you think you know better than I do, lad?"

Henry kept his mouth shut until Hook stepped back and laughed, clapping his hand on Henry's shoulder. Henry hated that he flinched, and he hated Hook for grinning like they'd just shared a joke. From that point on, Henry didn't say anything to Hook. Emma noticed things had taken a turn, but she didn't say anything, either. The closest she came to defending Henry was when he turned eighteen, and Hook started making comments about how he should move out and find his own place _because_.

"Henry can't afford to move out yet," she had explained. "He's not going to live here forever, Killian, but pushing isn't going to make it happen faster."

Cleo, the sweet kid, didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, and there were days that Henry wanted to pick her up and carry her out of the house. She deserved better than a father that only paid attention when he wanted to, and she deserved better than a mother that wouldn't call him out on it. And god knows that _Emma_ deserved better than to be in that position in the first place. Henry couldn't figure out why she stayed, except for some misguided attempt at providing the family she never had for her daughter.

Speaking of mothers and family, the pregnancy scare with Violet had given Henry the opportunity to move out at last. Legally, Henry was only a part-time employee until he'd turned eighteen, and even though he wasn't exactly broke, like Gold said, all the decent one or two bedroom apartments had been snapped up by his peers. Gold had offered to let him stay at his house instead. It was a practical solution, and Henry accepted the offer. All he had to do was move his junk out both rooms at his mothers' houses.

Both mothers were kind of contrite now. Regina had offered her car to help move boxes, and Henry accepted her apology for flying off the handle because it was sincere. He just needed some space, it was nothing personal, just time for him to move. Okay.

Emma hadn't been home when he went over there to get his stuff. Either he was early or she was late, he couldn't tell. He just knew he tried to hurry up because Hook came home and immediately started being a disgusting pig. You'd have thought that now that he was getting what he wanted, Henry leaving his "territory", that he'd be pleased. Maybe even hold the door while Henry carried his stuff out in boxes. Sadly, that would make sense, and Hook was nothing if not insensible.

Henry tried his patented technique of ignoring the bastard. And he'd done well, but there was a catch. If he ignored Hook, he'd get bored and wander off. But if he ignored him too much, then Hook would start fishing for a reaction. It was a precarious balance. Especially considering the topic the pirate was starting to linger on was Violet.

_"Is that lass of yours really worth all this, mate?"_

_"You must really think that Violet is something if she's worth pissing your mums off like this."_

_"Y'know, usually, it's the girl that has to run away from her family when she's up the duff, not the man."_

Violet had great taste: She hated Hook too. Her father hated him, and had forbidden Violet from going to Emma's house. It wasn't hard to imagine what Sir Morgan was afraid of, and to hear Hook talk now, Henry wanted to strangle him. Violet was more than his girlfriend, she was a human being. You just didn't talk about human beings like they were pretty accessories you owned. Not unless you were a real piece of shit, which Hook was. Sadly, defending Violet, however noble, would just make Hook talk more, so he chose to continue the silent treatment.

But, when Henry had all but two boxes in the car, Hook finally said something that made his patience snap: "You're really going through with it, aren't you? You're really moving in with the Crocodile, trusting him not to leave you as broken and ruined as Belle-"

"First off, you titanic asshole!" Henry spun around, slamming the trunk shut. "I'm an adult that makes my own choices, not a child to be lectured. I'm also not a child that can be mocked and taunted for choosing something, so shut the hell up!"

Hook scoffed, taking a step back even though he look at Henry like a pet that just rolled over. He even smirked. "I'm sorry, lad, did I _offend_ you?"

"No. You disgust me-"

"I disgust you? Well guess how it makes you look to be running away from home! Like a disgusting, spoiled child-"

"Oh shut up!" Henry snapped. "You can't manipulate me into feeling bad about this, not when you're just standing there making comments about my girlfriend that are sexual harrassment. Go back in the house, crawl into your rum bottle, and piss off!"

The practiced look of smug calm on Hook's face, like he expected Henry to run or relent, melted in the face of resistance. His eyes hardened and he scowled, pointing at Henry and taking a threatening step forwards.

"You listen to me, lad," he growled. "I know the Crocodile better than anyone in Storybrooke. He killed your own grandmother, and abandoned your father. And if that's not proof enough, he's ruined his second chance at a family too. What d'you think's gonna happen to you if you side with him? He's never going to change, he'll always be a vile, lying, cowardly monster hiding from his own shadow and blood-stained hands."

It alarmed Henry that Hook changed moods so quickly, but he wasn't scared. He just remembered ever passive-aggressive comment about how Henry preferred books to athletics, how he'd only ever had the one girlfriend, every time he'd tried to override his choices, every time he'd mocked Henry's troubles as the Author. And he wasn't taking it anymore. The pirate didn't scare him, he _annoyed_ him, and Henry wasn't going to play nice for another minute.

"Quit looking in the mirror and tell me about my grandfather, why don't you?"

It was almost funny to see that little vein bulging in Hook's forehead, even as the argument turned nasty. Henry wasn't sure, when he thought it over later, if Hook was just trying to hurt Henry, if he was trying to convince him to hate Gold, if he just didn't want Gold to have a single person on his side, or if he was genuinely threatened by Henry asserting himself for the first time. Things had devolved into screaming profanities by the time Emma rushed up and jumped between them, putting a hand on Hook's arm and saying, "Stop! Stop it!"

"I'll stop when this bastard of yours sees sense!" Hook snarled, and Henry's blood ran cold.

"Mom-"

"Henry!" Emma threw her hands up in front of her, almost warding Henry off. "You need to leave. We'll talk after you've cooled off."

If his blood was cold before, it was boiling now. Henry did leave, only because he didn't trust himself not to say something horrible, and stomped up the steps of the pink house. He was angry, but he didn't know at who. He was upset, but he wasn't sure if he was going to cry or scream. He just knew one thing for sure: He'd made the right choice in getting out of there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you need to hit someone with a stick, let it be Hook. Emma made a bad call at the end but he seriously needs more stick-beatings than anyone else.


	8. Opal Gets Allowed to Visit At Gold's House...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline Tip: This takes place when Opal and Oliver are about four.

Opal was less of an accident and more of a surprise. Not unwanted, just highly unexpected.

Astrid hadn't exactly been looking to have a baby with Leroy, it barely even occurred to her as a possibility. Dwarves hatched from eggs. Right? Well apparently fairies and dwarves were compatible enough to have a daughter that wanted out into the world on New Years Day a full three weeks ahead of schedule, and emerged pink and loud and squirming. And it would seem that the surprises with their daughter continued as she grew older.

Oliver was about seven months old, maybe eight, when Opal was born. He didn't pay her much attention as a newborn because she just slept a lot when Astrid brought her around to the library. He did take an interest when she started crawling because she was mobile, (very mobile,) and once Opal started toddling around on two feet that was it: They were best friends for life.

When they moved out their small apartment and into a nice little house, four-year-old Opal noticed that "Oliver's other house" wasn't very far away. This was about the same time Mr. Gold started keeping Oliver on Fridays and Saturdays, and since Oliver came over to play at their house, and Opal could go over to the library, she often asked to go play at Gold's house.

The problem was that it was Mr. Gold, the Dark One, Rumpelstiltskin, etc., even though to Opal it was just "Oli's daddy".

Leroy was suspicious about what the Dark One would do to their daughter, (Blue sneering down her nose was bad enough, and _she_ was supposed to be a good guy...) and kept trying to put it off. Astrid just wasn't sure she trusted Mr. Gold with her daughter, either. If Belle was there she'd be okay with it, but currently they were going through a spat over _something_. Opal kept asking though, (oh, she was a stubborn little girl,) until one Saturday morning Leroy and Astrid woke up late to his phone ringing.

"What?" Leroy grunted laying on his back, refusing to even sit up. (He was _not_ a morning person.)

Astrid wriggled over and laid her head on his shoulder, partly because she was cold, partly because she wanted to hear better. Leroy's arm came around her and he played with the ends of her hair, lulling Astrid back to sleep until she noticed it was Gold's voice on the phone.

_"Good morning. I thought you'd like to know I found a little stray in my front porch this morning."_

"This ain't the pet shelter Gold, wrong number."

_"Well it's a good thing you aren't the shelter, because I have a little girl here that walked from your house to mine and is currently in my kitchen eating pancakes."_

"What?!"

Within ten minutes, (including their stop in Opal's room which showed she was, in fact, not there,) they were on Gold's porch, knocking on the door. Astrid was facing Mr. Gold in his shirtsleeves and vest and pressed slacks, while she was wearing sweatpants and one of Leroy's coats. Oh dear.

"Where's our kid, Gold?" Leroy said sharply.

Gold didn't give them a second glance when he let them in, though. "They're still in the kitchen," he said, walking them through the house. "Opal said you knew she was here, but I thought that wasn't the case."

Astrid would be happy knowing their daughter was safe, but they would definitely be having words about lying later on.

Sure enough, Opal was sitting at the table beside Oliver, each with a plate of what looked like blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs in front of them. She was dressed with her hair mostly brushed and curling out from under a baseball cap, seemingly ready to start the day.

"What in the world do you think you're doing?" Leroy asked her.

"Eating." Opal said like it was...well it _was_ obvious. "Do you want my eggs Daddy?"

"Opal, what are you doing _here_?"

"Visitin' Oli," she replied, stuffing a syrup-drenched pancake bite in her mouth.

Astrid came around to her at the table. "Honey, why did you leave without telling anyone? We didn't know where you were, or why you were missing-"

"But I stuck a note on Daddy's coffee cup so you wouldn't miss it."

Astrid and Leroy exchanged looks. She wondered if he was thinking about how their daughter had noticed he went to the coffeemaker first thing in the morning, or was thinking about how from Opal's perspective she'd done everything she was supposed to do before leaving for a visit.

Opal was a consistent surprise if nothing else.

"Is Opal in trouble?" Oliver asked, poking at his scrambled eggs. He was dressed too, except his hair was extra fluffy this morning.

"Finish your breakfast, first," Mr. Gold chided gently, sitting back at his own place. He glanced at Leroy and Astrid with something like confusion, something like embarrassment, and something like total loss. Well, the feeling was mutual, that was fair. "Ah, if you're hungry, there are more pancakes in the kitchen and plates are in the cabinet over them."

Well.

It would just be rude to up and leave, and Opal was only half finished. It was definitely one of the stranger breakfasts Astrid had ever partaken in. Who knew the Dark One made blueberry pancakes? Leroy wasn't eating apparently on principle, but he did accept the coffee Astrid put in his hands, and his mood improved enough that he didn't object when Oliver asked to show Opal around his father's house.

Astrid went with them partly to keep an eye on them in this house full of oddities, and partly because she was curious herself. Few people had ever been inside the pink Victorian before. She decided to leave Opal where she was sitting on the floor if Oliver's room playing out some sort of adventure with Bubs and a stuffed panda, and came back to make sure her husband and the Dark One weren't needling each other.

Leroy was glaring at Mr. Gold, who was carefully ignoring him from behind a newspaper, but that was probably the best case scenario. Good.

They went home and got dressed in real clothes, then came back to collect Opal. She was safe and sound, and Gold was still polite, distant, but polite. When Opal started asking again if she could play at Gold's house next Saturday, this time Leroy and Astrid decided to schedule a visit before Opal walked herself over there again.

(Never mind they had explained that she was too young to walk around by herself, and instituted a new "don't leave a note, tell us in person" rule.)

Belle volunteered to be there while Opal was over to put any lingering unease to rest, and Oliver added that, _"Papa keeps the doors I ought not go in locked so we're really safe!"_   So, slowly they started allowing Opal to visit Oliver at his father's house, and slowly even Leroy had to admit that Gold was a responsible supervising adult.

Children were sacred to Gold, all of them, and not to be endangered under any circumstances. They didn't leave her over after dark or overnight, but, Gold wasn't offended by that either. He honestly seemed shocked whenever Astrid said hello to him on the street, when she was just being polite. She knew other parents thought she and Leroy were crazy for allowing it and being less afraid of the man behind the Dark One after a certain incident featuring mud puddles that needed a hose to fix. But that was their prerogative. They felt their daughter was quite safe with Oliver's family, _all_ of his family.

Hopefully, though, Astrid thought to herself when Opal was in kindergarten later that year, whoever she was pregnant with now would be a bit easier to handle than their daring little daughter...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are familiar with Peter and Joseph in the parent fic, Opal shouldn't surprise you too badly here. *pets the Dwarf Star family all around*


	9. Rumple Tries To See Belle At Granny's...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much what it says on the tin. :)

Hearing that Belle had moved off the damned pirate ship and into a room at Granny's had taken a large weight off of Rumpelstiltskin's chest.

The weight had been an amalgamation of stress, fear, hatred for the meddling of the town's hypocritical heroes, and old memories of a lame spinner trying to save his wife from the same ship. It was all stupid and unnecessary, Belle could take care of herself, (barring the ridiculous,) but...still. He worried for her and their unborn child. Even if they were on the best of terms, he'd still feel the need to hide her away in their house, somewhere no enemy would dare harm his beautiful wife and their innocent baby.

That wasn't a good option, though, and at the rate it was taking for Belle to have her space, their theoretical son would be graduating high school before they ever spoke.

So, uncharacteristically, Rumpelstiltskin decided to try making the first move. It was a good thing Dark One's didn't sleep because it took him almost twelve hours of talking himself in and out of different approaches until he settled on the least confrontational, most honest one he could think of. Belle hadn't been by to collect any of her personal affects, either, so he packed her clothes into two large suitcases, one with clothes and the other with books she had either been working on or had declared old favorites.

When she first got out of the hospital she'd seen the personal library Mr. Gold had kept and plucked out several titles at a time, tackling them in rounds until she finishes three or four books in her first week. It was a habit Belle hadn't quite lost, and not unlike the one she'd had after he gave her the library in the Dark Castle. It couldn't hurt...even though he wasn't sure anymore which she'd finished now.

It couldn't hurt.

Except it did.

_Physically._

The problem was that when Rumpelstiltskin approached the rear entrance to Granny's, the one that was the entrance to the "inn" part of her establishment, his skin started buzzing seconds before he crashed into an invisible wall that reeked of fairy magic. Rumpelstiltskin had sworn and set the suitcase holding clothes down so he could lift a hand to start unweaving the tight threads of the wards keeping him from his wife. He'd tried calling earlier but Belle wouldn't pick up.

He wasn't planning to storm in and demand she see him in person. He just wanted to leave the suitcases at the desk, trusting that Granny, (doubtlessly after she rooted through them with the utmost scrutiny,) who cared for Belle like a second grandchild, would get them to her eventually. It was a peace offering that didn't need a face-to-face exchange. He wasn't going to force his presence on Belle, but that she trusted those damned fairies and the pirate and the _Savior_ that abandoned her when she needed _saving_ was a low blow.

What Rumpelstiltskin really needed was to destroy something, and if it was built by little fairy hands that would be so much nicer...

He was halfway through ripping a hole through the wards when suddenly the door flung open and Granny Lucas stepped out wielding her crossbow, aiming right between Rumpelstiltskin's eyes.

"Hold it right there!"

God...this just wasn't his day. He tried taking the first step to repairing this mess, and the universe kept throwing obstacles in his path. Bloody typical.

But obediently, Rumpelstiltskin let his hand drop, or rather, stopped pulsing magic through it and held it up in a sarcastic mode of surrender.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Lucas-"

"Don't Mrs. Lucas me! Get the hell out of here, nobody wants you around here."

Obviously she overestimated his self-esteem. He knew _that_.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," he replied calmly, picking up the other suitcase again. "I brought some of Belle's things from the house, she hasn't come by to collect them yet. I just wanted to leave them in the lobby so they would get to her, eventually."

Granny narrowed her eyes. They had a complicated relationship, plainly speaking. Magic and supernatural forces had made Granny a werewolf, had cursed her daughter and granddaughter. Rumpelstiltskin majored in the kind of magic and curses that caused that sort of drama in people's lives. He'd even given her the red cape her granddaughter was famous for when Miss Lucas was a wee babe, when he'd had to explain there was no cure for lycanthropy and the price to be paid for a birth curse was too high for even he to consider. And that was all before Granny had aligned herself with Snow White against Regina in her darkest days, and by extension, himself as the Dark One playing with human lives like chess pieces.

But...at the same time, the old widow was never a fool. In the Enchanted Forest, one didn't get to be a gray-haired, wrinkle-faced senior citizen by believing popular opinions and letting her brain stagnate in her skull. And to be a werewolf on top of that, to have reached the point in her life where she'd stopped transforming as if it were just a passing phase?

"Leave 'em right there," Granny ordered, not budging her crossbow. "I'll see she gets them. Do you understand why these wards are up?"

Rumpelstiltskin snorted, setting the suitcases down on the path. "Because Belle doesn't trust me."

"Good to hear you understand. Makes me think she can learn different if you stick to that."

There was some kind of hint in there, but Rumpelstiltskin wasn't sure what. It had a very "get off my land and don't return" vibe he could understand, and also a "if you don't barge in here you might actually stand a chance" tone as well. Either way, he should probably leave before that bolt found its target when Granny's patience ran out.

He'd be fine if it struck him of course, but it would still hurt, and not be a particularly fortuitous symbol of things to come, either.

Rumpelstiltskin walked away, then, not quite noticing Belle peeking out the curtains of her room at his retreating back. He wouldn't know that Granny brought the bags up with only some minimal snooping, and wouldn't know his small gesture of respecting her space would prompt Belle, later in the week, to bring him a hamburger at the shop.

No, at the time, all Rumpelstiltskin really noticed was that he was glad he'd been warned off by a crossbow. The fairies wouldn't give a shit what happened to the woman carrying his spawn, he was certain. But Granny would stand by Belle. And he was very happy that Belle had someone in this town she trusted and could count on...

And if the standard rent payment for Granny's Diner had a fourth cut off of the next month's payment, that was his affair.


	10. Oliver's First Day of Kindergarten...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the label, pretty much. Also featuring the first time Oliver really meets Garrick!

Usually when Mama and Papa took Oliver some place together, it was fun. It usually meant eating out at Granny's, or at Papa's big house, or sometimes Mama's, and once they'd gone to Papa's other house in the woods. (Mama said it was a "cabin", but it looked like a house to him...) Today, they had each taken one of Oliver's hand and walked him to the kindergarten door, and Oliver's tummy flipped.

He didn't want to go to kindergarten...he'd never been around so many kids by himself before, especially not without Mama around.

Mrs. La Rue was the kindergartener teacher. She'd been to the library before. She was a very nice lady with a big purse, and Oliver wasn't scared of her...but he didn't think any of the other kids here would like him. Opal was supposed to be here, but Oliver didn't see her yet, and the only other kid recognized immediately was that mean kid who kept him from playing in the sandbox at the playground, and that wasn't very good, he thought. What if the other kids didn't like him? What if they were all like Neal? What if they stomped on his shiny new backpack and made fun of the pink-and-white stripes on his shirt?

It was his lucky shirt, he'd been wearing it when he found two head-side-up pennies and when Mama and Papa had their last good date. But Neal always made fun of it because it was pink, and Oliver liked blue and yellow better but this was his luckiest shirt. Maybe if he asked Mama if he could change shirts, she'd take him home and he'd miss his first day. He could come back tomorrow, right?

But then Papa was bending down and pressed a kiss to Oliver's forehead, squeezing his hand. "Do you have your lunchbox?"

"Y-yeah..."

"Do you have your socks on?"

Oliver giggled, pulling up his pants leg enough to show Papa his white socks. "Yes."

"Do you have all your fingers?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure? Let me see?" Papa checked the fingers on the hand he was holding. "One, two, three, four...five. Those are all there."

"Hmm," Mama giggled, kneeling down on the other side and checking those fingers too. "Six, seven, eight, nine-"

"Ten!" Oliver blurted, wiggling all his fingers. He could count to ten without ticking off on his fingers, he'd been practicing.

"All your digits are accounted for," Mama agreed, kissing his palm. " _Mwah!_ I think you're all set. Do you want us to wait until Opal gets here, or do you want to go in?"

Oliver bit his lip. He didn't want to go in alone. But he didn't want the other kids to think he was a baby..."C-can you wait here while I put my backpack away?" he asked. "Then I'm gonna come back and wait. Is that okay?"

"Sounds like a good idea. Go on."

There was a row of cubbies against the back wall, painted red and blue and yellow and green, with nametags taped to the front. Opal was right beside him in a red cubby, but Oliver frowned to see his name stuck to a green one. He hated green. It was an ugly color, the color of icky-tasting vegetables and snot. He looked around and plucked at the nametag, finding the tape peeled off easy. He looked around and picked at the nametag on the yellow cubby, switching places with it and tucking his backpack away. He'd stuck the other tag, for somebody named **Garrick B**., down on the green cubby he left, and then went back to Mama and Papa.

He waited by the door with them until Opal came darting in, and she almost knocked him over when she hugged him, then bounced back on her toes and squeaked, "Oli, Oli! Remember how I said my mommy kept throwing up all the time and felt awful? Guess what? I'm gonna be a big sister!"

"Hey, hey, hey," her dad said, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her from bouncing. "Not so loud!"

Papa snickered quietly when Opal looked up at her papa and said: "But Mama was really loud this morning when she told you-"

"Okay, let's put your bag away and I'll explain why you should be just a little quieter, okay?"

Oliver noticed Opal's braids were lopsided when they walked away. She was mad that she couldn't wear a hat to school, but at least she'd gotten away with wearing her favorite pair of boots with her dress. Or were those overalls? They had straps and buckles but a skirt, too. Weird...

He felt a little braver now that his best friend was here. Opal wasn't scared of anything, not storms, not heights, not the dark, not spiders, not nothing. Mama and Papa both gave Oliver a hug before they left, Mama soft and smelling like perfume and the library, and Papa smelling different and feeling harder, but no less nice. They both promised to pick him up after school, that they'd be waiting on him, and then they left.

Opal's dad kissed the top of her head, gave one of her braids a little pull, and said, "Have fun, be good, don't climb anything that isn't the jungle gym. We'll pick you up after school and you can tell Dopey all about your day, huh?"

"Do I get ice cream?"

"No negotiations, _yet_. We'll see later, okay?"

" _Okay_...I love you Daddy."

"Love you too, kiddo."

The school part of, um, _school_ , wasn't too hard. Mama had helped Oliver practice how to read and count, and he already knew the Alphabet Song. (That and "C is for Cookie" was probably his favorite song he'd watched on Sesame Street.) He could write a little bit, but not very well, and his letters were too big, so he tried paying close attention when they started with that. "Penmanship", Papa called it, he thought. Opal had gotten kinda bored and doodled on the edges of her paper, and the kid on the other side of Oliver had been jiggling his foot and playing with the eraser on his pencil most of the time.

That kid had fluffy, curly blonde hair and a mess of freckles splotching his face. His eyes were brown, and he wore a bright green shirt with some kinda flowers and leaves all over it, jeans, and red sneakers. His freckles spotted his arms a bit, and Oliver thought he'd seen him somewhere before, but couldn't remember where.

When lunch came around, the blond kid walked around like he wasn't sure where to sit, and eventually plopped down at the table beside Oliver like they'd been sitting all day. His lunchbox had a green dinosaur on it, and Oliver supposed dinosaur's were one of the better things to come in green. Lizards were cool. His lunchbox had Scooby-Doo on it, and Opal's looked kinda like a cheeseburger.

"Hi," the kid chirped, grinning widely. "I'm Garrick Booth, no middle name. What's your name? Uh, names, I guess. I like your shirt."

Oliver looked down at his striped shirt. "Oh. Thanks. Um. I'm Oliver. You can just call me Oliver."

"Opal. How you doing Garrick Booth?" she asked, poking an orange slice into her mouth.

"Well, you can just call me Garrick I guess, it's nice to meetcha," he smiled. "I'm okay. Kinda hungry though. Can I eat lunch with you?"

"Sure."

"Cool!"

Garrick was a nice enough kid, actually. He talked more than Opal did, and liked green, but he was also happy and funny, and he had cookies in his lunchbox, two of which he traded for the gross green Goldfish in Oliver's lunchbox.

Kindergarten really wasn't so scary once Oliver had two friends there.

When school was over, Mrs. La Rue  walked them outside where their parents were. Oliver had noticed Robbi was in kindergarten, and noticed her running to her mama again now. Papa and Mama were standing by Opal's parents, though, so that's where they headed.

Garrick's mom was Tinker Bell. Oliver sort of knew her, she was nice. She took Garrick's hand and said they would love to go for ice cream with the rest of them when Opal asked.

(Opal's uncle, one of them at least, owned the ice cream shop, how neat was that?)

Even though Garrick ordered gross lime sherbert and something about the smell of coffee ice cream made Opal's mom run to throw up in the restroom, while Oliver was sitting between Mama and Papa with a big bowl of chocolate ice cream, he thought today was a very good day to go to school...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was before Neal was held back. I might do a ficlet for that but for now, roll in the fluff for a bit. :)


	11. Tink's Family...

It was a normal Friday when Tink had brought Garrick over for their usual Friday dinner with Marco. A totally normal Friday, the end of a cool-but-warm day where you couldn't even tell the season if you weren't looking at a calendar.

If Tink ever saw August W. Booth again, she'd want to beat him with a big stick. Yeah, she hadn't planned on her getting pregnant from a random hookup either, but she wanted to keep it. She had the means, just the time was an issue since her job was at The Rabbit Hole. She could look for another, but obviously she couldn't just up and quit without a security net. August had promised to help and be supportive of their child, but when push came to shove, he'd still bolted, the bloody liar.

Marco, Gepetto, _whatever_ he called himself, was a different man altogether. He seemed hopelessly out of his depth when they explained the situation to him. ( _So we're not getting married because we're not even half in love, but we're gonna co-parent this half-fairy-half-formerly-a-puppet-turned-human baby, so that makes you a grandfather, is this making sense to you?_ )  But he was supportive all the same...and was severely disappointed in August himself.

"I know that he's not a perfect man," he'd said a few months later when Tink didn't feel like combusting with anger anymore. "But I thought...I thought he could do right for his son. Yes?"

Well, _no_ , but Tink didn't blame Marco. He was a sweet old gentleman, Garrick loved him as much as his grandfather loved him back, and Friday evening was set aside as a special family time.

Garrick couldn't wait to tell Marco about how they'd learned the life cycle of a frog in first grade today. He had a picture he drew from the memory of the diagram and everything, although Tink personally thought that the smiling sun in one corner of the picture and the rainbow colored critters were a little too stylistic to be clear teaching aids. Garrick obviously embellished certain details to make them more colorful, which was fine since he got the basics right.

Egg, tadpole, tadpole-with-legs, frog-with-a-little-tail, frog-

"Grandpa!"

Garrick had bounded through the door with a shrill cry and Tink darted in after him. The door was unlocked, and Marco was laying in the foyer, groaning.

"Grandpa! Grandpa!"

"Ohh...h-hey _germoglio_..."

"Grandpa what happened, are you okay?" Garrick worried, sitting on his knees on the rug by his grandfather's head. "Did I hit you with the door?"

"No, no, no...ah," Marco hissed, shifting like he was trying to sit upright. "I...I tripped over...over something. I think I hurt something in my knee...I can't get up."

Tink closed the door, looking down. The corner of the rug near her foot was flipped up, looking guilty as sin. Why did people throw down so many rugs in their houses? She'd heard one of the few demands Leroy had ever made from Astrid was to never buy another rug after she tripped three times over the one she put at the bottom of the stairs. Rugs were dangerous.

"Okay, do I need to call an ambulance or can you make it to the car?" Tink asked, kneeling down by Garrick. To give him something to do, she added, "Garrick? Go find Grandpa's phone, okay, bring it back here."

Garrick darted off to look for that household handset thing Marco had in different places in the house. Marco himself groaned again, shifting what must've been his injured left leg.

"I don't know...just call the ambulance, I'm not sure you can get me up."

Tink agreed. Not that she was too small or weak, but she wasn't sure how to lug someone down the steps without hurting them more. She accepted the phone from Garrick and told him to show grandpa his picture while she got the hospital, and walked into the next room to talk.

After she got done with the ambulance, she made a call to...it was Friday so Oliver would be at Gold's house. Gold was closer to here than Belle was, or anybody Tink was on decent terms with, plus Oliver would be there. Okay, so she called Gold.

 _"This is Mr. Gold,"_ he answered formally. _"May I ask who's calling-"_

"This is Tinker Bell, can I drop Garrick off with you for...a bit, Marco's fell and I'm going to the hospital."

She could almost hear Gold's brain grind to a stop. _"What? He-Of course, ah, should I call Belle to take them home or-"_

"Look, as long as you don't skin my kid for his freckly pelt or do any of those scary Dark One rumor things, I trust you not to kill him, especially with your kid watching. Leroy seems to think you're more trustworthy with children than with adults anyway."

 _"Children are less_ irritating _than adults,"_ Gold replied with a snort. _"Very well, I'll be waiting. Good luck."_

"Oh. Yeah, thanks."

Geez.

The ambulance arrived and estimated that Marco had a fractured knee, but they'd need a real doctor to be sure, so they drove him off while Tink ushered Garrick back into her crappy little compact car that looked like it had been through an apocalypse with all the dents and scratches it came with, and drove him to Gold's pink mansion.

Gold opened the door when they were on the steps and Tink nudged her son inside. "Go on, I'm gonna catch up with Grandpa. You stay here with Oliver and Mr. Gold, I'll call when I have something to tell you. Okay?"

"Okay...here," Garrick offered her the frog cycle picture. "Hospital rooms are ugly. Maybe this'll cheer Grandpa up."

Tink kissed the top of her son's fluffy head. "Thank you sweetheart, I'll be sure to give it to him."

Garrick, wise beyond his just-turned-six years, had been right. The room they put Marco in was as sterile as bleach, and smelled just like bleach too. The problem with his knee was something called a "stable patellar fracture" which would require a cast but no surgery. The x-ray Whale brought in showed a crack halfway down the little bone that was the kneecap, which was something Tink understood easier than all that Latinized gibberish.

Being in the cast meant Marco's knee couldn't move. Specifically so it couldn't move period. He was allowed to use crutches, and that was how it was gonna be for upwards up a month. Some of his carpentry projects could be finished sitting down, but some needed an able-bodied person. Tink figured she could ask Leroy what he thought about "apprenticing" for a bit of grunt labor, he was a pretty handy guy. _Work is work_ and all that.

"I'm gonna head home I guess," she said once it was dark out and all the doctors finished...doctoring, for now. "I'll be back in the morning."

Marco nodded, then thought for a moment.

"Would you get rid of that rug in the foyer please?"

"That's at the top of my to-do list," she promised, "I hated the colors anyway."

"You're a good person, Tink," he chuckled, dark eyes twinkling in a way Tink was sure Garrick had _learned_ from his grandfather, even if the genetics weren't right. "Thank you."

"Yeah, well," Tink shifted on her feet. "You're my kid's grandfather. Family...a really _weird_ family, but, y'know, I still like you anyway."

"The feeling is mutual," Marco smiled. "Tell _il germoglio_ thank you for the picture."

It was a bit inconvenient for Tink, who lived practically on the otherside of Storybrooke, to go back and forth every day to see Marco once he was out the hospital. It was eating into her gas money, which ate at her food budget, and therefore her rent. Marco seemed to realize this before Tink, and he suggested she take one of the rooms upstairs and Garrick could take the other.

There were only two rooms besides Marco's, (which he wasn't using, sleeping in his armchair instead since it was easier to get in and out of,) one a spare room, and one being...August's.

"Are you...sure about that? I mean..." Tink didn't care for August anymore. Sure. He called once in a while. He e-mailed. Sometimes he even sent some money. But it didn't erase the fact that he up and left Garrick behind. But Marco was his father, and she wasn't going to come between them-

Marco smiled, patting her hand in a fatherly way.

"If he ever needs a place to stay in Storybrooke, I'm sure he can find a room at Granny's. He made his choice, and now I'm going to make mine. If it would be easier for you to stay until I'm back on my feet, then you're welcome to stay. Whatever would helps my family."

So...they stayed. And stayed, even after Marco was through with the cast and physical therapy.

Garrick had more room here than in Tink's old apartment. (She suspected when she was "evicted" when she tried to break her lease, Gold was just tying up loose ends rather than being rude.) And someone kept an eye on him while she was working, and they pooled her and Marco's money together to make things all-around more stable. It was a solid arrangement.

One she was happy with because she had her whole family under one roof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Germoglio_ means _"sprout"_ , and that is just a cute nickname I think. :)
> 
> (Before you ask, I will be doing ficlets for August fleeing town, and Garrick staying over at the Gold house. *dashes away*)


	12. Cleo Looks At Families...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if I buy this new theory that at least _somebody_ in the writers room is subtly coding Captain Swan as abusive and toxic, but if they are, I'll be damned, I'd send them a fruit basket because they're making my subtle coding a hell of a lot easier with each episode.
> 
> (Some creepiness if you squint, this is from a 4/5-year-old's perspective so Cleo doesn't get all the signs. Someone save this smol and her mother.)

Cleo had a school assignment in about families. So, she'd been playing close attention to families lately. There were lots of families in Storybrooke, and Cleo thought her family was one of the biggest. But there were other families, too.

Her best friend Stephanie had a smaller family. She had a mommy and a daddy, just like Cleo, and a big brother too. (Phil wasn't as big as Henry though, Henry was a grownup.) Her _other_ best friend Lydia had two parents, but she had two moms, and a baby brother.

Lydia was new to Storybrooke, really. She had joined the kindergarten a few months ago and been kinda scared, and Oliver had encouraged Cleo to go make friends with her when some kids were making fun of Lydia for having two moms. Cleo didn't know why they'd do that because Henry had two moms, _and_   Lydia's moms were True Love and stuff. What's to make fun of? Lydia called her moms "Mommy" and "Mama", which was clearer than Henry calling his "Moms", and they were nice ladies. They adopted Lydia and Todd, that's why none of them looked alike, like Henry didn't look like Regina.

Or _quite_ like Mommy either, really. Henry's hair was dark brown, and his nose was kinda big. In a suit he did look like Mr. Gold, but Cleo didn't say that because Daddy didn't like Mr. Gold, and he didn't really like Henry much somedays, so Cleo didn't want to cause trouble. Mommy said it was best that way.

Actually, Cleo could think of two other kids that didn't have fathers: One was Robbi, but her daddy died a hero. That's what they said. Robin Hood died a hero. Cleo just wasn't sure how or when, but it must've been when Robbi was a baby. The other kid was one of Oliver's friends, this boy named Garrick Booth who had messy blonde hair and freckles all over his face that got worse in the summer.

Garrick's daddy had run away from Storybrooke when he was a baby. He lived with his mommy and grandfather. Cleo had been told one day when she was sitting with them listening to Oliver read a book he brought from the library, that Marco wasn't Tink's father, he was Garrick's dad's dad.

"Why do you live with him then?" Cleo asked. "If he's not your mom's daddy?"

"Well, 'cause we're family I guess." Garrick shrugged, and turned back to the story.

Oliver's _other_   friend, this girl named Opal that was the strongest girl wearing pink Cleo knew, had a normal kinda family, she'd thought. Her mom was really nice, her dad was sorta grouchy, (he was Grumpy from the Seven Dwarves, Cleo thought she'd heard,) and she had two little brothers. Cleo always thought she was a regular kid, except she had six uncles, and one honorary one.

(Cleo didn't know what an _honorary_ was, but thought she might have one somewhere in her family tree too.)

But Cleo just heard lately that Opal's mommy was a fairy. She wouldn't have thought _that_ since fairies, (except Tinker Bell,) all lived in the convent with the Blue Fairy. Except Opal's mother, apparently, and Cleo wondered how a fairy and dwarf ever met. The Blue Fairy didn't really like Opal's family either, once, Cleo saw her make a face at them in the dinner when they were eating, and thought it was really mean because even if Opal's family was kinda big and noisy, they were all pretty nice.

Oliver was nice too, he and Miss Belle. Cleo didn't know much about Mr. Gold, just that Daddy didn't like him and that it was better not to talk about him, (or Oliver,) at home. She also didn't know what this "divorce" thing Mommy and Grandma were always saying Miss Belle needed to get. It must've been magic, maybe, something to keep Mr. Gold away. He did _look_ sorta scary.

But Oliver didn't seem to think so. Oliver had a mommy, and a daddy, no brothers or sister, and he lived some days at the library with his mom, and some days at his daddy's house. At least Cleo _assumed_ he had a house. Maybe he lived in his shop.

The day before Cleo was supposed to draw her family picture, she'd asked Oliver something that was bothering her that involved his daddy: Henry, Cleo knew, wasn't daddy's son. (Was _that_ why Daddy didn't like him?) He had another daddy, and that must've been Mr. Gold's son since he was Henry's other grandfather aside from Gramps.

Mommy sometimes got upset if Cleo asked too many questions about things, and she didn't look happy when Cleo had been asking about why Henry didn't call Daddy his father and just said, _"Well he's your half-brother, your father is his stepfather, so it's not the same thing exactly. But we're still a family, it's just a little different than usual, I suppose..."_

That sorta sounded like what Garrick said. Except Daddy could be kinda mean to Henry. Cleo didn't say anything 'cause Mommy was right, Daddy did get upset kinda easy sometimes, but she figured Oliver might know something and she wouldn't get in trouble asking him. If Cleo could have a big brother, _um_...almost fifteen whole years older than her, and if Neal was almost a bajillion years younger than Mommy, maybe Oliver knew his big brother too.

"Nope."

Or maybe not...

"Bae died before I was born," Oliver shrugged, picking at his sandwich in the lunchroom. Most kids, unless they were related, didn't sit with younger kids, but Oliver didn't mind her. Stephanie and Lydia weren't at school today, a sick day and a doctor's appointment each, so Cleo didn't have anywhere better to sit. "Actually I think he died just before Neal was born, that's why they named him after Bae."

"But...Neal's...y'know, _Neal_. Is Bae like a nickname?"

"No. Well, yeah. His real name is Baelfire, he just used the name Neal in this realm. Papa kinda gets upset when he talks about that, so I'm not too sure what happened. He spent all three hundred years trying to find Bae again, I know that, because he let him go through a portal or something. I'll ask Henry, he knows everything."

Why didn't Cleo think of that? See? Oliver was real smart.

"So are you my uncle then? Like Henry?" The most confusing part of Cleo's family was that Mommy's brothers and sister, Grandma and Gramps' kids, were all around her age...but they were her uncles...and Ruth was her year-older aunt. Curses made everything _complicated_.

Oliver shook his head. "I'm just Henry's uncle. Your mom and Bae weren't married, so she's not even my sister-in-law."

"Oh. But 'cause they had Henry, we're still kinda family, aren't we? Henry likes me, and you, and Mommy, and Mr. Gold."

"Uh...yeah, I guess so." Oliver hummed, snapping a Nilla Wafer in half and giving her a piece. "To our ever-widening, increasingly bizarre family tree."

Cleo thought she had everything straight for her picture then, and when she got home she started work right away since it was due tomorrow. She'd put off doing it until she got everything right.

Most of her family didn't have interesting hair though. Mommy, Gramps, Neal, and Leo were blondes, everyone else had dark blackish hair. Miss Belle and Oliver had brown hair, and Mr. Gold had silvery hair. (Hmm, that was funny.) So she tried to add some color in their clothes. Regina had to wear a pretty red dress, and Mommy didn't really wear colors but sometimes she wore pink. Cleo's grabbed the wrong crayon, though, but the red didn't look bad on Mommy either.

Just when Cleo was about done, (the people looked fine but they needed grass to stand on, and if they were outside there had to be a sun in the corner...) Daddy came home. Since Cleo was drawing on the kitchen table he couldn't miss her. When Daddy came to press a kiss to the top of her head, Cleo thought he smelled kinda stinky. Sorta like fish, and the rum he liked best to drink. He took a look at her picture, and she waited on him to say something about it.

Ruth was a _much_ better artist than Cleo. But she thought she'd done pretty well...until Daddy made a face.

Cleo tried to guess what was wrong. Leo was a baby, so he was just sitting there while Grandma held him, like a big burrito with a head. And Regina's hair was sorta spiky because Cleo got the curly ends wrong, she was sure, and Miss Belle's shoes didn't look as nice as they did in real life. It was hard drawing Daddy's beard since it was just kinda see through-

"Why did you draw _them_?" Daddy gestured to Oliver and his parents. "They aren't part of your family."

"Yes they are." Cleo said. "See, Henry's my brother, and Mr. Gold's grandson, Oliver's his uncle. Miss Belle's Oliver's mommy so I had to add her too. Ooh. I forgot about Robbi and her mom, should I add them too-"

"Absolutely not." Daddy wrinkled his nose. "Zelena is Regina's sister. We don't claim her. And you don't want the Crocodile in this picture either, he's no family of ours."

"But he's Henry's grandfather-"

" _That_   doesn't make him family. He doesn't even deserve to live in this town!" Daddy scowled. "That man has tried to destroy the town and the people that live here, to kill your mum, and all manner of villainy!"

Cleo shrank in the chair as Daddy started raising his voice. Mommy always said Daddy didn't like Mr. Gold. He wouldn't want Mr. Gold in their family either...maybe she made a mistake.

"I could do it over..." Cleo said, and she didn't want to sound small but she _felt_ small. "Without him?"

Daddy stopped and looked at her. He smiled then, and ruffled Cleo's hair. She might've flinched but she tried not to. Daddy wouldn't hurt her, after all.

"This is for school, right? Some...family project?"

"Yeah..."

"Just worry about me and your mum then. Maybe your grandparents and their kids, eh? Immediate family, the important ones."

Mommy came from upstairs then, looking around slowly. "Is everything...okay down here?"

Daddy took the picture from in front of Cleo and went over to Mommy, giving her a kiss and pressing the flat side of his hook against her back like he did sometimes instead of a hug. Mommy stayed still until he was done, and he said, "Sorry to frighten you love, I got home earlier than expected."

"Yeah, so I've noticed," Mommy murmured. "So what's going on?"

"Nothing to worry about, just a little misunderstanding. I'm going to take a shower, there was a disturbance at the docks today and let's just say I smell a bit fishy."

"Sure, sure, there are fresh towels on the rack," Mommy smiled, accepting another kiss to her cheek when Daddy left.

He took her picture with him. Cleo had a feeling she wasn't going to get it back.

Mommy came over and smoothed Cleo's messed-up hair down. She had her Sad Eyes on, the ones that made it look like she was trying to be nice and calm and sweet like Grandma, but her smile was too small and her eyes were distant.

"So what are you doing? How's the...picture..." Mommy trailed off. "Do you need some more paper, kiddo?"

"Mommy...Mr. Gold's Henry's grandpa, right?"

It was one of those questions that usually made Mommy get upset, and her smile turned funny and she blinked rapidly as she knelt down by Cleo's chair. Cleo didn't want her mother to cry, she didn't want her father upset, but she _wanted_   to know why her brother's grandfather wasn't really family.

"Well...H-Henry likes him. But Mr. Gold is, um, he's not a good man to the rest of us...and, uh, and your father really...they're sort of enemies, I guess, but see-Well it's just bad blood between them, and you shouldn't add him to your family picture, okay? Maybe just, you and me, and Henry, your dad-"

"Daddy said I could put down Grandma and Gramps too-"

"Good, good, them too. That's good enough, don't you think?"

"What about Regina?"

"Um, well...it's your family, honey," Mommy said, squeezing Cleo's hands. "You have a real big family to choose from, so you put down who's most important to you."

Cleo didn't really understand, but she nodded anyway. Anything to make Mommy stop looking scared. Her mommy was the Savior, she was a hero, she shouldn't look scared by a dumb picture...

Cleo got in trouble for not turning in her assignment the next day.

Mrs. la Rue kept her in at recess and asked her why she didn't do it, when she'd been so excited before, but Cleo wasn't really sure what to say. "I...couldn't decide who was family, 'cause I have so much..."

It sounded dumb.

But Mrs. la Rue, who was a sweet lady getting ready to retire as teacher, looked at Cleo for a long time, and then she smiled. She opened her arms and brought Cleo in for a hug, and she smelled nice and had a soft sweater, and Cleo didn't feel scared or stupid then.

"That's okay, sweetheart, that's okay. Why don't you just do a quick picture of you and your parents so I can say you completed the project, and that'll be fine."

Cleo nodded, and the quick picture she made looked kinda empty next to all the other kids' pictures. Lydia had her moms and Todd and Granny, Stephanie had her parents and brother, some kids put in their pets too. All Cleo had put down was a sloppy picture of her, Mommy, and Daddy, but when she brought it home Mommy and Daddy had said it was pretty and hung it on the fridge and everything.

Henry took her outside in the backyard to play swords for a bit before dinner, and he'd asked, "I thought you were drawing a big picture? What happened?"

Cleo bit her lip, lowering her toy sword. "I changed my mind...my picture was wrong...I think."

Henry frowned, but not at Cleo. Then he grinned and poked her tummy with the tip of his sword.

"Keep your guard up Cleo, c'mon."

He never mentioned it afterwards, but Cleo could tell Henry was suspicious. He and Daddy were really not getting along, not since he'd turned eighteen and hadn't moved out. Cleo'd miss Henry when he left, but maybe everybody would be happier if they weren't all under one roof. If Mommy didn't have to chose between Daddy and Henry, maybe she'd be happier too.

Cleo had noticed that, except maybe for Oliver's parents, all the other families she'd thought had been so unusual were almost always happy together and none of the mommies had Sad Eyes. Maybe Cleo's was the family that was different...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half-related to this universe: Someday I'll write the gross CS wedding for this 'verse, but for now I'm plotting a SQ wedding. I'm thinking cocktail dresses, but look at this RED LEATHER WEDDING DRESS and ooh and ahh over it, please. **http://of-princes-and-savages.tumblr.com/post/159903039986/im-researching-wedding-dresses-for-the-sq-fic-i** If canon's done anything for me, it's provide Emma with the ugliest most OOC sacrificial bride dress I couldn't have thought up if I'd tried.
> 
> (Why yes, I am disgruntled.)


	13. Violet and Henry Have The Pregnancy Scare...

It had to be food poisoning or something. Yeah. Sure, her father was still snoring in his bedroom without a sign of illness when they ate the same dinner, but it had to have been a bug, yeah. And if Violet was late by two weeks, well, that didn't mean anything...right? Right? Oh god...oh no...

This could _not_ be happening. She and Henry had been going steady together since a break when they were in their mid-teens, and they'd always been careful. He'd been embarrassed that one of his mothers had given him an actual box of condoms, but using them was probably safer than a scandalous teen pregnancy. (Henry's words, not hers.) Someday Violet would like to have children, one or two at least, and she wouldn't mind if Henry was the father. Just not any time soon, not when they both still lived with their parents.

God. This couldn't really be happening, could it?

When Gretel was in her senior year, she had a pregnancy scare herself. The only reason Violet found out was because Gretel had told her a slightly amusing story about how she'd shoplifted an at-home pregnancy test from the pharmacy and left a five dollar bill on the shelf because she felt so guilty about robbing the place again.

(She had experience. Gretel and her twin brother Hansel had been orphans during the first curse that brought everyone to Storybrooke, up until Emma had gotten their father to adopt him before the curse broke. Violet sometimes wondered what happened to the woman who helped out total strangers, she thought she would have liked to have met her...the Emma Violet knew now was sort of...self-centered. Centered on things important to herself.)

Now, Violet was twenty-one years old. Not a teenager. But she wanted to sink into the floor when she brought the home pregnancy test to the check-out counter amidst a dozen other items she'd hoped would be less conspicuous and was sure had been a total failure.

Now, five hours after the morning she'd woken up throwing up but otherwise fine, two weeks late on her period, she sat on the bathroom floor during her lunchbreak at home hoping that it was just a stomach bug. Or the pork they'd had for dinner. Anything that _wouldn't_ cause a little blue positive on her test...

Violet's stomach dropped when the exact opposite happened: A positive.

Oh god.

She had to tell Henry before anything else. Henry was a good man. He was calm, sensible, mature, and he wouldn't pull an August Booth and run out of town on her. Probably. No, he wouldn't. They told each other everything...this had to count to.

Oh god...

She stuffed the box down in the bin where her father wouldn't see it. Then, she took the pregnancy test with her when she left, and hoping they wouldn't mind if she was a bit late getting back to the animal shelter, she called Henry and asked him to meet her in the park.

She was sitting on a bench, jiggling her leg when Henry came strolling up in his gray suit with the red tie. He had his cute crooked smile on, and the wind ruffled his bangs and Violet felt like she was going to burst into tears.

What if she was wrong and he didn't want anything to do with her and this baby now? What if he freaked out? What if he didn't help? Violet just wanted to tell him so he could help decide what to do next. Keep it? Go visit that clinic?

This seemed like a stupid time to get married, she loved Henry, but Violet didn't think she was ready for that yet. Oh god. What if he wanted to get married?

"Hey." Henry grinned. "What's up?"

Violet's throat closed up. She grabbed the test and thrust it out at him mutely.

Henry blinked. Then his eyes widened. "Uh...is that-"

"Yeah."

"And is it y-"

"Yeah."

"And it's-"

"Uh-huh," Violet nodded.

Henry flopped down on the bench beside her. "Oh."

It was quiet for long enough that Violet blurted out, "Is that all you have to say?"

"Um...g-gimme a sec," Henry licked his lips, looking infinitely less confident than he did a moment ago. "Okay, so...how are you?"

Oh. Yeah. Like they were just exchanging pleasantries instead of discussing an accidental pregnancy. God.

"I'm freaking out."

"Okay, so we're on the same page," Henry nodded dumbly, taking her hand and giving it a firm squeeze. "Freaking out is something. Uh...is everything...do you feel okay?"

"I, uh, I'm late...and I threw up this morning..."

"Oh. H-how late?"

"Two weeks."

"Oh."

Violet laughed weakly, hiding her face against his shoulder. "Please stop saying that."

Henry wrapped his arm around her, kissing the top of her head. "Okay...well, it could be a lot worse. We've both got pretty steady jobs, we're out of high school...um...I love you a lot..."

"I love you too. But I'm not ready to get married-"

"Thank _god_. I mean," Henry back-pedaled quickly. "I'm not ready either."

"I know. You still don't know how the dishwasher works."

Henry groaned, pressing his face to her hair. "Stop talking to my moms, please."

"No. Oh...oh god, Henry. They're going to be grandmothers."

"Oh _god_...Violet. Does your dad know?"

Oh...jeez...

"No..."

Henry seemed to freeze for a minute. He was just a little nervous about Violet's father. Sir Morgan still kept his sword and armor in their apartment, and he had enlisted as the swordsmanship instructor at the high school...if he was truly upset, then Henry was gonna be diced.

"Not...yet. You're the first person I told," Violet swallowed. "I-I didn't know who else to tell. What are we going to do?"

Henry took a deep breath. "Well...I'm not sure what kind of place we can afford yet, but we're not broke. And we've got each other. But I think we ought to tell my moms first, they might be more supportive than your dad...unless you want to tell him and let me tell my moms?"

Violet thought about it for a minute. Her father wouldn't throw her out, maybe get a little upset because she was his only child, _his little girl_ , but he wouldn't disown her. He'd be angrier at Henry, she suspected.

Henry's mothers...?

Well...they loved Henry. She knew that. They loved Henry, and they'd respect that he wanted to support his girlfriend and their child. They were also protective of Henry and might get a little upset, too, but Violet didn't feel like it could go _too_   badly...

"How about we tell them together," Violet smiled, wiggling an arm to wrap around his waist. "Two against one?"

"Well...we'll probably have to tell my moms at the same time...but that's an equal match, right? Two against two?"

"Okay. Two against two first. Then we'll tell my dad. So...we're keeping it, right?"

"If that's what you want," Henry nodded, kissing her forehead. "I'm onboard, but right now you're in charge of that little unborn Mills-Morgan slash Morgan-Mills."

"I do want children. And a husband, someday." Violet hummed, feeling a weight slide off her shoulders. "I guess it's okay if we go out of order a bit."

"Okay...I guess I'll just have to step aside when you find a husband-"

"Shut up and kiss me Henry Daniel Mills." Violet giggled swatting his chest.

And he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly it did not go well...I'm not sure I'm going to write that particular exchange, yet, but I'm pretty confident you knew that already, dear reader. Hmm. :/
> 
> *pets Violet Believer*
> 
> (The pregnancy test was a false positive, by the way. Kinda obviously...I'm not sure how they work, myself, but I think you're supposed to take two tests for safety.)


	14. The First Mother's Day for Belle and Rumple...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This incident was mentioned in Chapter 8 of the parent fic.

Belle had given birth at the end of May last year. She'd been a mother for almost a whole year. And she'd moved back into her library apartment for about seven months, as it took some time to get everything ready for habitation again. Rumple had started taking Oliver on the Fridays and Saturdays, giving Belle some baby-free time to herself.

Lately Belle had been inviting Rumple to take brunch on Sunday mornings. It was almost like a normal family thing...if she didn't feel like she was holding her breath each week.

It was unfair, everything had been going so well, but she couldn't help it. The reason they weren't one of the happy families moving through Granny's on Mother's Day mornings was because they were so damaged and usually when the damage felt like it was repairing...everything broke again.

But Belle had faith that they'd be okay...really she did...

She'd forgotten it was Sunday though. _Mother's Day_. Belle overslept because Oliver, bless his tiny heart, was starting to sleep all through the night now, and she was just zonked _out_. By the time she woke up and started stumbling around, she didn't think about who could be knocking at nine in the morning...

Which was how Rumple, pressed and presentable in his crisp suit and tie, came face-to-face with her in her floppy pajama shirt and baggy sweats. Belle consciously touched her frizzled, untamed hair and was keenly aware she looked like something that crawled from under the bed rather than rolling _out_ of it.

"Good morning!" she squeaked.

"Good morning...ah," Rumple chivalrously did not gawk, or snicker. "I was wondering if I could borrow Oliver for a bit. I had plans to pick up Granny's...is that okay?"

Oliver was standing up in his little crib, dressed in his tiny yellow dinosaur pajamas. He had an impressive case of baby bedhead and babbled happily when Belle came around the corner into the little room the dwarves had installed when they repaired the apartment.

"Mama!" he chirped proudly, reaching out with his hands and losing his grip on the railing, so he fell down on his bum, not phased in the least. "Mama!"

"That's right baby, c'mon," Belle cooed, scooping him up. Oh but he was growing so fast... "Let's get you dressed to go with Papa-"

"Papa! Papa! Paaaapa!"

"You are such a papa's boy, aren't you?"

"Papa!"

Rumple peered inside the room just when Belle had a fresh diaper on Oliver. Her son was not making it easy, squirming and kicking his little feet energetically. When he saw his father, all Oliver wanted then was his father, reaching up and calling, _"papa! papa!"_  again.

True, he said "papa" before "mama" but his very first word was "boog!" which they had deduced meant "book", since he had pointed to the full cases in the library when he was saying it. Belle would call that a fine compromise.

"Good morning m'boy," Rumple greated, coming over to play with Oliver's hands and keep him from rolling off the little changing table while Belle fetched a onesie and some socks. "How are you?"

"Papa! Ta!"

Rumple looked down. His tie was a lighter shade of blue, sort of royal blue rather than black as tar. "A new tie?"

"Ta!"

"Yes, I have a new tie, very observant. Are you ready to go get your mummy something to eat? It's Mother's Day you know, you're supposed to appreciate her today."

Oliver giggled and babbled something that was presumably in agreement. He was a bit less squirmy while they got him into his little gray onesie with the primary-colored A-B-C across the front, and each took one of his kicking feet to put his little knit booties on. Belle looked at the fluffy mess that was Oliver's wispy hair, and fetched a matching hat, too.

"Okay, be good for your papa," Belle encouraged, pressing a kiss to the top of the little blue hat.

Oliver flashed his gummy little "bunny rabbit" smile, just the top two and bottom two teeth. He usually did that when Belle told him _"be good for papa"._ She suspected he knew he had Rumple wrapped around his little finger already. Oliver was a smart baby, even if his English wasn't very good yet.

"Alright, son, off to Granny's," Rumple smiled, carrying him to the door. "Say goodbye to your mama, hmm?"

"Bah!"

Belle saw them out and closed the door. The smile on her face didn't fade until she wriggled into a floral print dress, brushed her hair so it looked less like a birdnest, and remembered that after brunch Rumple would probably go home to the Queen Anne and Belle and Oliver would stay here in the apartment. She wasn't about to move back in with Rumple, not until they had a good, solid relationship built back up. Still...she'd like to be under the same roof one morning because they'd woken up together, not because someone had come over early.

Still...they weren't fighting, so that had to be a good sign.

Right?

Right...

Belle disregarded shoes, walking barefoot out to her kitchen and getting out two plates. She dug out Oliver's little high chair and took a moment to ponder what she'd serve him. She got out some Cheerios and, depending on how he'd react to the Cheerios, got a banana ready to mash up if he was being picky. Usually he was only picky with green-colored foods...

After that there was just some busywork, like putting away some books she'd left lying around and plumping the couch cushions. She felt less maudlin when Rumple knocked on the door, enough that she felt she could smile genuinely when she opened it. She took the takeout bag from Rumple, and then noticed Oliver was holding something he certainly hadn't left the apartment with.

Oliver waved a beautiful pink rose around, the petals fortunately not flying off. He babbled happily, the bloom bobbing around until Rumple stilled his hand, gently.

"Anton was selling flowers outside Granny's," he explained, nudging the door shut with his foot. "It's a very enterprising idea, I'll give him credit for that. Two dollars a bloom, must've made twenty dollars between our going in and coming out."

"Oh? Well that's nice of him." Belle smiled. There were quite a few children starting to be born in Storybrooke, which in turn meant lots of new parents. Anton had been declared an honorary uncle to Opal, since he was already declared an honorary dwarf. "That's a very pretty rose. Thank you Oliver."

Rumple smiled, giving Oliver a little bounce, shifting him higher up. "I think our boy is hungry, he kept trying to nibble on the petals."

Belle set the bag on the table and came over to relieve her son of his present. "Oh baby, no, flowers aren't food," she clucked, plucking the rose from Oliver's hand. "Um...where are the thorns?"

The green stem was completely smooth, like the thorns had just fallen off. Rumple shifted a bit, his shoulders squaring themselves. "I took a...safety precaution. Is that okay?"

Belle was leery about magic around Oliver. She just...didn't want a worst case scenerio happening. Even though she wasn't entirely sure what a worst case would entail, precisely. Still...

"That's...okay. Better than Oliver pricking his fingers, I suppose," she smiled, giving the rose a dainty sniff. It really was a pretty flower...

She glanced up to see the smile had fallen off of Rumple's face. Not sad...exactly. His eyes just turned soft and far away, and Belle wondered what he was thinking. Maybe the first time he gave her a rose. Years and years ago when she was a maid and he was a monster that wasn't so monstrous...and the rose had been her fiance. She wasn't as mad about that as she supposed she should be, really.

(Gaston made a fine flower, beautiful and smelled nice, and was absolutely _silent_.)

She had felt like she was walking on air, like her heart was fit to burst, all manner of romantic cliched feelings bubbling under her skin back then. She felt a flutter in her chest now, and decided a small step of faith wouldn't be too out of line...

Belle leaned forwards, rising up on her toes to press a kiss to Rumple's cheek. His skin was smooth-shaven, his aftershave smelling so good her stomach flipped. His eyes had fluttered shut when she pulled back, and Belle wondered how inappropriate a full-on kiss would be...and like he'd read her mind, he leaned closer, their noses brushing, breath ghosting over their lips...

Then something tugged the rose in her hand-

"No!"

Rumple jerked away like Belle had slapped him, and blurted, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"Not you!" Belle snatched the flower out of her son's reach.

But it was a little too late. Oliver had been chewing on her rose, and now he had crushed petals stuck to the dribble on his chin and lips, and Rumple yelped the minute he realized that and brushed the petals away.

But again, too late, and they spent a very interesting few minutes trying to get Oliver to spit out the flower bits and not swallow them, the rose ended up tossed on the table out of harm's way. Belle tried to remember if roses were poisonous to human beings. Rumple said no, but also that he wasn't sure what Anton might've put on the roses to make them grow. Pesticides and the like.

Belle thought she heard Astrid say something about how Anton's was an organic garden, and scrambled to find her phone and check.

In the end, Oliver did _not_ have to go to the hospital, and Belle and Rumple had been in such a panic that neither had time to digest the fact that they'd almost kissed until, much, much later.

Again...too much later, Belle sighed after Rumple had gone home, setting the worse-for-wear rose in a vase on the counter, well out of Oliver's reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darned mouthy babies. *smooshes Oliver* Tsk-tsk.
> 
> (I apologize for any pain, this wasn't intended to turn bittersweet. DAMN YE ANGST!)


	15. Garrick Sneezes Green For The First Time...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @barpurplewrites asked: _When did Garrick's sneeze thing manifest? How did Tink react?_
> 
> It turned out to be a little longer/involved than I thought the answer would be, but that seems to be the case with this story...

Right on time, Tink had come to drop Garrick off for Friday so she could go into work and get some things done she couldn’t with a nearly-three-month-old baby that was going through a clingy patch where he fussed if she put him down for too long. The garage door was open leading into Marco’s workshop, but he wasn’t there. August was sitting at the counter typing on that typewriter of his, and had come over to take Garrick off her hands. They’d a fight a few weeks ago that still had things a little bit strained, but Tink really hoped it would pass.

August wasn’t a bad guy, but he didn’t do so great with responsibility. He strayed easy, one of the reasons Tink hadn’t wanted to marry him when she got pregnant. Still, he was a nice enough guy, with a little practice he’d be a good dad. He had a good role model in Marco, at least. Tink liked Marco, and was glad he’d taken the news he was going to be a grandfather in stride…as much as you could stride with the circumstances. The carpenter was a family man at heart, maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised.

Marco looked to be in the middle of working on a table. There was a belt sander nearby and the table looked like it was still being ground on to a smooth finish, and a fine layer of sawdust was everywhere. There was a breeze just as they traded off Garrick, and Tink’s nose twitched with the urge to sneeze, but thankfully it passed. For her.

“ _Choo_!”

Garrick’s itty-bitty baby sneeze sounded adorable, but that wasn’t what held Tinker Bell and August’s attentions: It was the green glitter sprayed on August’s neck and shoulder where their son had sneezed on him.

“Whoa!” August held Garrick out at an arm’s length, craning his neck to look at the mess. “What the heck just happened?”

“I-I don’t know-”

“Has he done that before?”

“I think I’d remember if it did!” Tink scooped Garrick back up. She felt peculiar checking his nose for glitter, but that was clean. There were a few vibrant lime-green sparkles sticking to his lips and chin, but she couldn’t tell if that’s where the glitter had come from or if it was blow-back. “This..this is new…”

August absently scrubbed at the stuff on his neck. “Is this like a fairy thing or something?”

“Fairies aren’t babies, I mean, not…not like people,” Tink grimaced, tugging her sleeve over her hand to wipe her son’s face clean. “We’re born fully formed and just kinda learn as we go. I’ve never met a half-fae before, I’m not sure about that. Garrick’s kind of a one-of-a-kind in that department…actually…no he isn’t, get in the car.”

“What?”

“Astrid’s daughter’s half-fairy, _and_ older than Garrick. Let’s ask her if this is normal.”

When Astrid left the convent, she’d found a job as Belle’s assistant at the library. It was coming up on closing time, and Astrid and Leroy were just coming out the door when Tink parked her crappy car and jumped out the car. She flagged them down, seeing Leroy was carrying their daughter, and he certainly made a bit of a sight with a five-month-old wearing a onesie covered in pink-and-purple butterflies, staring at Tink with those fascinated eyes in a way only babies could.

“Hi Tink,” Astrid smiled. “How’s it going?”

“Ah…good, good…” hmm, how to gracefully lead into this? “I, ah, I have a question for you about Opal. Erm. Now I know this mind sound strange, but fairy mum to fairy mum, do you mind if I ask anyway?”

“Oh. Uh, okay. Shoot.”

“Does Opal do anything… _funny_ , when she sneezes?”

Astrid thought about it for a moment, even though she looked a little puzzled, then shook her head. Leroy did the same, adding as he squeezed one of Opal’s tiny hands, “Nothing that her uncle Sneezy doesn’t do. Why?”

August came up with Garrick. (He was never very good at all the fasteners and buttons on the car seat, Tink still got them all confused herself.) Astrid seemed to notice the glitter right away, and her eyebrows went up. “Oh. That?”

“What?” Leroy asked, and as if right on cue, Garrick sneezed again, adding a new spray of green sparkles to August’s leather jacket. “ _Oh_. Yeah, that’s…that’s a new one on me. That’s weird is what it is, how is he doing that?”

“We were kinda hoping you could tell us,” August sighed, shifting Garrick to his other side to try to wipe the glitter off his coat. “He just started doing _this_. I thought it was a fairy-baby thing, I remember fairies in the old world being very, very sparkly. Blue kinda left a trail of stuff whenever she’d visit.”

Tink wondered if pointing out to her child’s father that “Blue” was not a very good name to bring up in front of Astrid and Leroy was something she’d have to do later. Leroy scowled with his eyes a bit, (most people smiled with their eyes, but no, Leroy was one of the few that could outright scowl with just his eyes,) and Astrid consciously reached over to touch her daughter, like she was verifying she was still there. Blue hadn’t been very nice when Astrid left the convent, and had been very nasty when word got out that she and Leroy were expecting. Tink got lucky in that Blue didn’t have any faith in her, but maybe that cerulean bitch had been hoping Astrid would come crawling back to the cold, clinical order of fairies if things didn’t go her way. The oh-so-benevolent Rheul Gorm looked at baby Opal like she was a slimy grub you found under a rock in the diner, and given that she was half dwarf too, maybe to Blue it wasn’t such a big leap to make…

Screw her anyway, back to their babies.

“Opal’s never done anything like that,” Astrid insisted. “As far as we know she’s an ordinary baby.”

“For all Whale had been looking for wings or a beard…” Leroy grumbled against the downy brown fuzz on Opal’s head.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t have that either. Er, _either_ either. I mean, I’m not a very strong fairy to start with, but maybe it’s sorta like with dogs, y'know?”

“Dogs?” Tink blinked. Astrid was flighty, sweet as pie but so very flighty, and sometimes Tink couldn’t quite keep up with her train of thought.

“Yeah. Dogs, y'know,” Astrid shrugged like it was obvious, even if Leroy looked a little lost too. “Like, Bashful just adopted a puppy and it’s this little furry gray thing, but the other puppies in the litter were this reddish brown color, and some had short hair instead of long hair, because the mom was this hound dog with short fur, but they think the dad was this long-haired gray thing. Uh, does that make sense?”

“No,” August said at the same time Tink said, “Kind of…”

And it did make a little sense, even if Astrid’s analogy was a bit…abstract. In clinical terms, when you mixed races you were really pulling out of a grab-bag of genetics. In this world that typically meant people of different ethinicities, but for fairies, dwarves, and humans, surely things got a little blurry there too. Nobody had ever heard of a dwarf… _procreating_ with anything before, but there were a few whispers of half-fae children before. Some said Rumpelstiltskin himself was half-fairy, too, but Blue had quashed those rumors thoroughly until only the brave dare speak of it in hushed voices.

“So…so it’s just a…luck-of-the-draw, thing? That Garrick might have…fairy magic, but Opal doesn’t, or it just looks that way at the moment?” she hazarded, and Astrid beamed.

“Yeah! Something like that, uh, I think.”

“Huh…”

It wasn’t much longer before Astrid and her family went on their way, and Tink and August got back in the car. She had to call in to say she was going to be a bit late, she thought, while driving August back home-

“So…what? We’ve got this magic kid now?”

Tink tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, not looking at August. They’d hooked up a total of four times, and she didn’t _not_ like August, but they just weren’t very compatible as people. She had more in common with Archie Hopper than she did August, and probably wouldn’t have anything to do with him if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with his spawn. Plus…he had some weird ideas sometimes that Tink didn’t agree with…

“We don’t know that.” she said neutrally. At least she hoped so. She’d never been a mother, and she’d certainly not planned on mothering a magical child, but there was no need to start jumping to conclusions yet.

“Okay, but what if we do? I mean I was expecting something weird, what with you being a fairy and all-”

“Okay, first off,” Tink held up a finger, glaring out the corner of her eye. “If you’re going to blame me for this, I’ve got one word: _Puppet_. Secondly, I don’t have an answer for you yet, but we’ll just cross that magical bridge when we come to it. Come on August, he’s just sneezing green glitter, it’s not like he’s summoning tornados or casting hexes.”

“Hey, it was fairy magic that made me a real boy in the first place,” August argued. “And secondly, you didn’t get his sparkle-snot on you. What even is it?”

“I said I don’t know! Look, look, we’ll just talk about this later-”

“No, you’re always telling me to ‘talk about it now’, I want to talk about it now.”

Tink clenched her teeth as she made the turn onto the right road. “I was due at work in five minutes, I _can’t_ talk right now. There’s a difference in a scheduling conflict and skirting an issue, like, say, saying you’ll split the cost of a sitter when I _just_ said I couldn’t bloody afford it.”

August rolled her eyes, and Tink held the wheel tight so she didn’t slap him. “I made a mistake, okay, do you have to hold everything against me?”

“Only when you don’t learn. I tell you in advance whenever I need you to watch our son when I’m at work, I don’t ask you for anything and I held my tongue that time you took Lily out on one of your nights-”

“Hey, lady, we agreed we weren’t an item, you can’t scold me for dating. And you said it was fine-”

“I said it was fine because your father said he’d watch Garrick anyway!”

“Then what does it matter?” August huffed in a long-suffering tone that did not garner her sympathy one iota.

Tink tapped the brakes a little too hard, and tried not to feel too smug when August jerked forwards. Garrick was out like a light, nothing woke him up when he was riding in the car, so he was fine. She twisted around in her seat and jabbed a finger at August, poking his shoulder where green stuff still stuck to the leather.

“It _matters_ because that was one of _your_ nights! You agreed every other weekend and every Saturday night was going to be your time with Garrick, when you looked after him. I’m pissed off that you seemed to forget that so easily, especially when you were so quick to promise to support him in the first place!”

“Jesus Christ, I got the dates mixed up! I didn’t forget about my son!”

“No but you forgot when it was your turn to take custody, and damn it August, I worry about that.” Tink pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to fight back the headache she always got when they had this argument. “I just-I have to tell you like a week ahead of time whenever I need you to look after Garrick outside your hours. I’ve let you say it would distract you from your writing as an excuse-”

“It’s not an excuse, I just-”

“I’ve let you bring him back early more than once because I didn’t want to look like a nag, too. You have no idea how much I keep my mouth shut when I want to argue! How you run out of supplies even when you’re expecting Garrick, how I suspect Marco pulls way more weight on the weekends than you do, and right now I’m afraid that you’re going to back out entirely now that Garrick might not be a normal human boy because you can’t handle the slightest amount of pressure. I’m so tired of feeling like the only one trying to be a parent, like I’m the only one really trying for our son. Could you just think about that while I try to get off work early so we can come back to this, and then we’ll hash it all out, I promise. Please?”

August was quiet for a long moment, and Tink just stared back at him. She said it- _she felt like the only adult here_ ,-and she wasn’t going to take it back.

How could she? What was going to happen if Garrick _did_ have magic? Was she supposed to handle that alone because she was they fairy he must’ve gotten his powers from? What if he _didn’t_ have magic, but _did_ run into trouble? Was she supposed to handle it because August didn’t do confrontation? Was she supposed to pack her son’s lunches and help him with homework, while August was the fun parent that never solved any of their son’s problems? Tink was terrified too, she’d never been a mother before, arguably she was even less prepared than August since she didn’t even have a parent to go by as an example. But she was at least trying. It felt like August was doing the bare minimum while she was in it for the long haul, and they were going to get this sorted before it became a problem.

The long silence was broken by Garrick whimpering in the backseat, and they both looked back there.

“Fine,” August sighed, unbuckling his seatbelt. “You go to work.”

“Okay…thanks.”

Tink didn’t realize it as she drove off once he’d gotten Garrick out the car and was heading inside, but that glimpse she got of him in her rearview mirrors was the last she’d see of August Booth in Storybrooke. Marco told her when she got there an hour early that August took off about two hours ago, and he’d thought he’d gone to visit Tink at The Rabbit Hole to talk it over. Marco must have been too busy with Garrick to notice August had packed his damned typewriter and some other crap on his motorcycle before he took off. Tink wasn’t heartbroken that he’d left in the sense of…of a romantic entanglement, really…but she was heartbroken for her son, that much she knew.

And even though the only contact August had with their son had been phone calls and the odd video chat for the next nine years, (and likely for the rest of his life, too,) Garrick didn’t seem to take his absence too hard. It might be a different story if he knew the timing of August taking off coincided with the first time what became his signature trick had manifested itself. So Tink and Marco had never told him that part.

It wasn’t worth hurting her son over the possibility that his father up and left because Garrick could sneeze green glitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be writing the argument mentioned at the beginning because it takes place outside of Granny's Diner and is quite the spectacle in my notes. I will also eventually write something from August's POV, so I ask you to hold any pitchforks and torches away from his person until then.
> 
> This seems like a good time to remind myself that I split from canon in about 6x03/6x04. Jekyll didn't die by the hand of a St. Killykins anyway, so here the Black Fairy is a sort of... _non-entity,_ that will not be making an appearance even if she's mentioned now and then. Thank you! :)


	16. Neal Has Trouble With His First Grade Homework...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the true start of when Neal began acting like the little prick we all want paddled today. There will be a follow-up from Snow's POV once I write something cute and fluffy to balance out the universe.

"Rob...wall...walked his..." Neal squinted at the letters on the page. "Rob walked his bog a-"

"Dog."

Neal glared over at Oliver. His parents had to save the town so they had Belle take him to the library after school. He'd rather have stayed at Emma's, but they were busy too. Belle used to babysit him a lot but she said that it was too much trouble, with him and Oliver fighting. Mom asked Neal to be nice to Oliver today, and Oliver's mom said the same thing about being nice to him, but if that puny kid corrected him one more time...

At almost three, Ruth still had some trouble with the potty. And Cleo just turned two and wore diapers still 'cause she had even more trouble, so Opal's mom and Belle were off taking care of them. They weren't in school yet, but Oliver and Opal were. They were kindergarteners where Neal was in the first grade now.

In some ways, first grade was better than kindergarten. He got to wear a uniform like the big kids, and didn't have to take a nap, and got to go on cooler field trips. In other ways it was stupid. Neal knew the alphabet song, he could count, but doing homework for math and reading was the stupidest thing of all. He had this worksheet with a list of word problems he was supposed to solve. He was getting stuck on this problem, and he'd been told in kindergarten he should "sound out" a word he didn't recognize, which was what he was doing.

Oliver and Opal's assignment was coloring in a picture using the guide underneath it. Neal remembered that assignment. One is blue, two is red, three is yellow, junk like that. Oliver had filled in all the yellow and blue first, and Neal just wished he'd color in the rest of the picture instead of correcting him.

"It says bog." Neal tapped the word on the paper.

"You can't walk a bog," Oliver said simply, twisting the crayon in his hands. "It should say dog."

Neal glared down at the paper. The dumb letters had shifted around again. What was a "b" before now looked like a "d", and Neal wondered if he should ask if homework could be cursed.

"Rob walk-ed his...his dog," Neal muttered, moving on to the next word. It started with either a "b" or a "d" again, so he guessed. "B...d- _down_ the...street. W-will they...watered..."

Opal sat up on her knees, leaning over the table to Neal's side and peering at the paper. "What kinda story are you readin'?" she made a face as she read it herself. "Rob walked his dog down the street. While-"

"Hey!" Neal slapped his hands over the words. "Leaves aren't supposed to be purple, why don't you worry about that!"

"Yeah? Well if leaves aren't purple then why is there _purple_ cabbage?"

Neal didn't have an answer for that.

"I think it's called red cabbage," Oliver said. "At least that's what the sign says."

"Then the sign is dumb." Opal huffed, flopping back in her seat. "And you know what? Uncle Tiny's gonna plant purple elephant ears this year, so those leaves are purple too."

"Now that's stupid," Neal scoffed. "Leaves are green, and you can't grow elephants!" Opal was gonna get in trouble for not coloring in her picture right, so he sure wasn't taking advice from her.

"That's what I said," Oliver said. "But I asked Mama and she says it's not an elephant, it's a big leaf that looks like an elephant ear. I bet we could find a picture if you wanna look-"

"I don't wanna _look_ , I wanna be left _alone_. Some of us wanna finish our homework already," Neal sniffed, looking back down at his homework.

The letters had moved again. He couldn't remember where he left off and started over, but the word "dog" looked like "dop" and that couldn't be a word, he didn't think, so he had to start over again and got stuck again. He needed to ask Belle for help. She knew a lot about magic stuff too, maybe she'd know if his homework was cursed or not.

"Would you like some help?" Oliver asked, setting down his crayon. "Mama says I'm a good reader."

Neal didn't want Oliver's help. Oliver was a dumb little kid. He had his stupid doll sitting on the table like it was watching him do homework, and Neal snatched it up.

"Hey!"

"What's that?" Neal held the ragdoll against his ear. "Oliver's mommy has to say he's special because he's a loser that plays with girls and dolls? Well I already knew that Bugs-"

"His name is Bubs, and I'm not a loser!" Oliver jumped out his chair and ran around the table. "Give him back!"

Neal held it out of Oliver's reach. "What's that Bugs? Oh! I didn't know that-"

"Knock it off!"

"Oliver _is_ a girl? Well that explains his pretty pink shirt!"

"It's his lucky shirt, you idiot!" Opal snapped, throwing a crayon at Neal that clipped his ear harmlessly. "What's wrong with you, did you get your lucky underpants stuck up your butt?"

Neal turned to say something to her, but Oliver tackled him then, grabbing for the doll.

The chair fell over and Neal tried to shove Oliver away with one hand, the other hand keeping the stupid doll out of Oliver's reach.

"Get off of me!"

"Give him back!"

"It's just a stupid doll, what's your problem?"

"It's _my_ doll, so what's _your_ problem?"

Oliver managed to grab the doll and pulled it free, but Neal grabbed on to an arm, (or a leg, he couldn't tell,) and yanked it back.

_**Rrrrpp!** _

It was quiet for a moment. Neal noticed white stuffing spilling out the doll's shoulder. The arm he was holding had ripped. Oliver was staring at it with a pale face, his mouth hanging open and tears filling his wide eyes. Neal kinda felt sorry because he didn't mean to rip the doll, but at the same time, it wasn't like an action figure, you could just sew the arm back on. And Oliver was still on top of him.

He shoved, and suddenly Oliver punched him in the face.

" _OWWW_!" Neal screamed, tasting something weird and gross in his mouth by his teeth. "You hit me!"

" _You ripped his arm off_!" Oliver shrieked back, and Neal swung out. He was bigger than Oliver, if he wanted a fight, he was gonna win it.

The doll got lost when they started punching and kicking. Neal heard Opal shouting when he rolled on top of Oliver and squashed him, but then someone grabbed him under his arms and yanked him up.

"Neal Nolan you get off of him!" Belle snapped, dropping him back on his feet. "What are you fighting for? Oliver, what-Oh no, what happened to Bubs?"

Oliver started crying, (Neal got punched in the face and he wasn't crying...not even a little,) and blubbering, holding tight to his stupid rag doll. "He took him an' ripped him!"

Belle turned on Neal, her pink lips pressed together. "Did you take Oliver's doll?"

"He hit me-"

"Neal answer me, did you take Oliver's doll before you hit him?"

"Before, that's why Oliver whacked him!"

"Thank you, Opal." Belle said, and she picked Oliver up and sat him on the table before she turned to Opal and put on a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Would you do me a favor and check on your mum, please, she's throwing up again. Can you bring her a water bottle?"

Opal wrinkled her nose. "Okay...but I can't wait 'til she has her baby and stops that. That's nasty."

"I imagine she thinks so too, go please."

Opal slid out her chair and shuffled off. When she was gone, Belle picked at the frayed arm socket. "That'll be okay, baby, you can ask your papa to fix it good as new. But you didn't have to hit Neal, _and_ ," she turned, fixing Neal with a hard look. " _You_ didn't have to hit _him_ , either."

"But he started-"

"Now we can argue about who started what all day long. Oliver shouldn't have hit you, and you shouldn't have stolen his toy. Why would you do that?"

"He kept stopping me while I was reading!" Neal said. Everytime he got going good, Oliver had to say something and distract him. "Opal too! They're dumber than me and they keep saying how I should be reading my homework!"

"He kept getting words wrong," Oliver said. "I didn't mean to bother him, but it was wrong!"

"It was not!"

"Who walks a bog?"

"Shut up!"

" _Boys_!" Belle snapped, and they both stopped talking. Belle was real nice, most of the time, but she was kinda scary when she was angry. "That's enough! Oliver, get your homework together, I want you to stay upstairs for the rest of the day, I'll take Opal's stuff up there too, okay? I can't leave you two alone without you fighting anymore, so that's just the way it has to be. Neal, I'm going to come back, so please get back to work. Is that clear with everyone?"

Neal glanced at Oliver, and he glanced back. They didn't like each other, but having Belle get angry and upset with them both wasn't a good idea, either. Oliver scooped up his stuff and Belle took him upstairs, and after a few minutes, she came back and sat down by Neal. She looked over the problem that was giving Neal trouble, and smiled at him in the nice way she had. Before Neal started school, he used to spend a lot of time with Belle when Mom and Dad were busy, he knew she kept water bottles that were kid-sized so they didn't have trouble opening them and she'd always kept bananas around for him. She was real nice and smart.

"Do you mind reading it aloud for me?"

Belle had helped him sometimes with his kindergarten homework, she knew he was a slow reader. But it was still embarrassing. Belle read real fast, she read big books all the time. She even remembered stories so that she didn't have to read them on paper. She helped Neal learn his letters, why couldn't he read fast like Oliver and Opal could even if he was a year older?

He still gave it a try. The letters had jumped around again, and Neal couldn't find his place. So he started over, even though his eyes felt hot halfway through it. "Ro-Rob walled...I mean walked, he _walked_ his dog b-Er, down the street. W...white-No, While th-they watered on the st...the side...s-sidewalk...two cars pa-passed by. A...a trup...no, a truck stobbed...at the...the...the r-red left. A-alter Rob and...and his dog, cr-crossed...crosssed the street, the tru-truck dr-ove away with...one...m-more c-can-I'm getting it all wrong aren't I?"

He didn't want to cry but his eyes were watering and he tried to scrub them dry. Maybe Oliver and Opal weren't dumb, maybe he was. Opal saw his stupid homework upside down and she got the first sentence right.

Belle wrapped her arms around him, kissing the top of his head. "Oh Neal, no honey, no, you're not stupid. Nobody's stupid-" did he say that outloud? "-reading is just harder for some people than others, it's okay!"

"It's not okay! I don't wanna be stupid!" he wailed into her collar.

"You're not, it's okay, I promise. Here, look, you were very close. It says, 'Rob walked his dog down the street. While they waited on the sidewalk, two cars passed by. A truck stopped at the red light. After Rob and his dog crossed the street, the truck drove away with one more car behind it. How many cars and trucks did the boy see?' Do you know the answer?"

"Um..." Neal swallowed. "F-four? Three cars an' one truck?"

"Let's see now...two cars plus one truck is three, and one more makes four. Yes, that's _exactly_ right." Belle smiled, squeezing him. "You're not stupid, see? It's just a riddle, those can be tricky to understand. Go ahead and right down the answer, and we'll move on to the next one..."

Neal did. Belle didn't say his handwriting was too slow or remark about his backwards three that Mrs. Robinson corrected with a red pen when he turned it in. She helped him figure out the questions and then let him puzzle out the answers, and by the time he was finished, Mom and Dad came by to pick him and Ruth up. They spent a really long time on his homework.

Belle asked Neal to go find Ruth, so he did. Later on, he'd figure that was when Belle must've told Mom and Dad that he was too stupid to stay in the first grade, and that she wasn't as nice as he thought she was.

Mom was in a weird mood the next few days and took Neal to the doctor. He didn't have to get shots but they had him do some weird things he'd never had to do before, mostly involving reading, and when it was over the doctor said he was dyslexic and Mom looked kind of disappointed. They told him he was going to have to go back to kindergarten, so that when he came back to the first grade next year, he'd be more prepared for it.

Neal didn't feel like he was preparing for anything though, he felt like a moron. He was taller than the other kids, and he still had some trouble keeping up with his reading and writing. The only kid that could be slower than him at writing was Garrick, and that was because he kept fidgeting in his seat.

Mom and Dad had him read more stuff, too. Cereal boxes, signs, the menu at Granny's. More reading made Neal feel like a...like a disappointment, like he was always being tested. The practice might've helped, but Neal couldn't really tell. He did make a new friend, Tommy Herman, and Robbi was around if she wasn't in one of those moods where she scurried away from everyone who said hi. But mostly it sucked being stuck in the same classroom as perfect-reading Oliver Gold five days a week.

Belle had told Mom and Dad that she absolutely, could-not-would-not watch Neal and Ruth ever again, too. Neal wasn't sure if she blamed him for the last fight he and Oliver had in the library over that dumb doll, or if she was afraid he'd make her kid dumber by hanging around him. Without Belle watching him, though, Neal had to go and play with Tommy. When the bad guys were gone, though, sometimes he got to go down to the sheriff's station and Killian would watch him. Sometimes, Killian even took him to the Jolly Roger to play, and that was a lot of fun.

Killian never made him read or focus hard on his homework. He didn't think he was stupid, didn't tell anyone he was stupid, and he told real stories instead of made-up ones like Belle did. Who wanted to hear about The Cat in the Hat when you could hear the real-life story of how Captain Hook crossed swords with the Dark One and lived?

Neal didn't miss the library one bit, or Oliver and his dumb friends and dumb toy. It was harder, sometimes, not missing Belle because she was still acted so nice, but Neal knew she wasn't, not really. It was her and Oliver's fault he got held back, not his. They were wrong. Nothing was wrong with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Age-wise here, it's about early to mid October, the school year hasn't been in for longer than a month at least. Neal is six, ( _plenty_ old enough to know how to act,) Oliver turned five in May, Opal's about to turn five. Astrid is three months along, give or take a week or two. *gives her a pack of saltines*
> 
> Opal is totally not going by the color-code directions, by the way, and wherever Garrick is at this moment you can be assured he isn't either. This is based on my sister who started the trend of wearing mismatched socks so that all the other little girls had to do it, she colored in rainbow Valentine's Day hearts instead of red ones, and it's actually on her permanent record that "this child cannot skip" because she said she didn't feel like it when they told her to do it.


	17. Henry Explains The Family Tree to Oliver...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, surprise, Rumbelle are accepted as family after years of denial in canon. Hmm! :) The Unresolved will continue unabated, but, ironically here's three generations of Stiltskin boys being cute together I had finished before the finale aired. Enjoy!
> 
> Credits to Silver8fox for the idea. :)

Isaac had written down the pre-curse lives of everyone in Storybrooke, but nothing after. Henry had decided to start recording _that_ while he still had first-hand witnesses around to verify the truth, and one Friday after school in late early December he went over to visit with Gold to ask a few questions about town life under the curse. Oliver was there, dropped off so Belle could get some ninja-Christmas shopping done with a five-year-old watching. He was sitting living room rug playing with Bubs while they talked back and forth for a bit. The phone rang and Gold went to answer it, leaving Henry alone with his notebook and the youngest Gold.

"Henry?" Oliver asked out the blue. "How many papas do you have?"

"What?"

Oliver wiggled around until he'd climbed on the couch. His feet didn't touch the floor, and his socks didn't match, at odds with the serious, studious look on his little face. "How many papas do you have if you have two mamas? Is Cap'n Hook your papa?"

(He didn't call Henry's stepfather _Killian_. When Belle gently tried to correct him when he was three, Oliver had pursed his lips and said primly, _"Mama, kill's a mean thing to say, you said so,"_ and Henry had almost choked trying not to cackle.)

Hook and Emma had been married for about...well Oliver was turning six in May, so about six years. Henry firmly believed if Emma hadn't decided to stay with Hook when she found out she was pregnant with Cleo, they'd be married a lot shorter than that, but sadly that wasn't the case. But just because _Killian_ was Cleo's father, married to Henry's own mother...

"Nope. He is not my father."

Oliver tilted his head in a Belle-like fashion that made Henry smile. "But he's married to one of your mamas?"

"Yeah, he's my stepfather. That means, ah, he's a step below being my real dad. I guess. Emma was pregnant with me, just like Cleo, but Regina adopted and raised me from a baby. That's why I have two moms."

"Oh. So who's your papa?"

Henry glanced around, checking for Gold. It had been six, almost seven years, but...well that was a pain that never eased, losing a child, Henry supposed. It still hurt when _he_ thought about his father, at least.

"He...he died, a long time ago, before you were born."

"Oh..." Oliver pressed his lips together, reaching out to pat Henry's arm. "I'm very sorry."

Henry snorted, wrapping an arm around the boy and pulling him close. Oliver was funny. He was very observant, was always watching people. Who knew where he picked that up from. "Thank you. His name was Neal, well, he called himself Neal Cassidy in this world. He was also your dad's son Baelfire."

There was that little head tilt again. "Papa said Bae died, an' that's why he's not here anymore. I thought he was a kid."

"Well, no, he was grownup. He and Emma...er, well they had me but they weren't married. So I didn't know him until I was eleven. And I didn't get to know him for very long...but he was cool, he was a good dad."

Oliver nodded. Then he frowned. "So does that make Papa your grandpa?"

"Yeah. Um..." oh, no one had really covered that before...had they? "Well yeah. And David and Snow are my other grandparents, Emma's mom and dad."

"So that makes...um...Neal and Ruth your...uncle and aunt? Am I your uncle?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess so." Henry snickered. "And Belle's my grandma."

Oliver gasped. "Mama's too pretty to be a grandma!"

"And you're too young to be an uncle!" Henry poked his little tummy until he giggled. "We're part of a big, tangled family tree kiddo, try to keep up!"

"What's Moe to you then?" Oliver asked, wiggling out of reach. "Is he a grand-grandpa?"

"That's a _great_ -grandpa, and nope, I don't count him. Zelena's Regina's sister, but I don't could her as an aunt either."

"Does that mean Cleo's your aunt, or is she a cousin?"

Uh...how to explain this? Oh.

Henry flipped to a blank page in his notebook. He scribbled down his name at the bottom of the tree, and after a second, jotted down Cleo there too, since she was Emma's daughter. He put down his moms and Dad, and for clarity's sake put down Hook too. (Ick.)

"Let's see now...these are my parents. Hook's not my father, but he's here because Cleo is my half sister, meaning we share a mother, and he is her father. Right?"

"Right." Oliver leaned over to take a good look. "Who's next?"

"Well Emma's mom and dad, Snow White and Prince Charming. We'll put down two X's for Ruth and Neal. There. Regina's half sister is Zelena, their mom was Cora, and Regina's father was Henry Senior. She named me after him."

They'd skip the part where Regina was Snow's stepmother...and Henry's step-great-grandmother, which made his maternal grandmother his stepsister. That was a little much for a grown man to digest, let alone a five-year-old.

"Oh. So Papa's next?"

"Alright. There's Mr. Gold slash Rumpelstiltskin, and Dad's mother Milah..." _who was a bitchy tramp that ran off with Hook..._ "...who's dead, so we won't worry about her too much. On the other side here is Belle, his second wife-"

"You can have more than one?"

"Uh, not at the same time. After a divorce or if one dies, but the point is that's you there. You're Baelfire's half brother, and my uncle. Above Belle is Moe. There."

"What about Robbi?"

"Robbi? Ah, she's Zelena's daughter, so that makes her my...cousin, I guess, if I counted Zelena as my aunt. And her father was Robin Hood." Henry hated how that part of the family tree looked. It shouldn't be that way. Robin should've been put down as Regina's True Love, and a hundred years from now, somebody looking at the geneology was just going to see Zelena and Robin had a child together. It was disgusting. "Oh, and Robin Hood had a son too, Roland. His mother was Maid Marian."

"Robbi's gotta half brother, too? Is he dead? Or with his mama?"

"No, no, um...well Maid Marian died when he was a baby...and before you were born Robin was killed, so the Merry Men took Roland home to the Enchanted Forest. He's not here."

Roland was a good kid, Henry had been teasing Regina about how he was getting a stepbrother until...until he wasn't, obviously. Hopefully back in the old world, Roland Hood and the Merry Men were somewhere safe and sound...

"Oh...well that's okay, I don't think Zelena's a nice mom."

True. Very, very true. Henry was just turning nineteen this year, a lot of people still looked at him like a kid, but he knew Zelena wasn't a good parent. Regina was in denial, insisting Zelena just needed a little help, even though she'd had help for years now and ought to know better, or else just move in with Regina and start seeing Archie. Shoving that aside for the moment Henry added on to his maternal grandfather's branch.

"David had a twin brother, James. And their mother's name was Ruth, who they named Ruth Nolan after."

"She's dead too, right?"

"Yup."

"How come the Nolans name all their babies after dead people?"

"That's an excellent question," Gold said, making Henry jump. _Jeez_. That man was sneaky as a cat. "I suppose it's a Charming Family trait."

Oliver sat up on his knees on the couch, flopping over the back to look at his father. "Am I named after a dead guy?"

"No, names have power, y'see," Gold smiled, poking Oliver's nose. "Oliver is a name you can make all your own, the first in the family."

Henry glanced away when Oliver giggled, and looked down at the family tree he'd sketched out. On paper, they were all together. Henry really tied the Dark One in to the Charming clan, by blood, but they always ignored that. He was even guilty of it himself, the first time he'd went to Gold for a job at his shop, he'd used it as a tool to get in...not because it meant anything. Not his proudest moment, but he'd like to think they'd recovered some good ground since then. Belle was invited to family parties, but then, so was Zelena...blood didn't always mean everything, but...but the way family treated each other _should_ -

"Hey Henry," Oliver asked. "When you and Violet get married and have babies, are you gonna name them after dead people?"

The pen in Henry's hand slipped, clattering to the floor. "What?!"

Gold snickered. "A valid question, you are half Charming Henry."

"Hey! Whoa! Wh-who says we're having children? I mean now-I mean-We're not even married!"

Oliver did that damned head tilt again. "You just said your mama and papa weren't married."

"Uhhh..."

 _God_. How did kids always ask the right questions to disrupt your entire though process? Oh...god...Henry looked down at the family tree diagram. This was complicated enough. Him and Violet adding in a baby of their own? Oh lord, that was...oh...oh god...

Gold nudged Oliver. "Come on, m'boy, how about we find you a snack and give your nephew a chance to recover?"

"From what?"

"From _everyone_ , I suspect."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Henry. :)
> 
> As I've broken up with canon and will NOT watch Season 7 unless they come up with something truly fantastic, the smol bean that is Henry's daughter, (and Violet's, if I'm not mistaken,) will not appear at any point in this fic. Sorry Lucy, you're just a little too late.


	18. Robbi Hears About Roland...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be covering this topic in greater detail soon in the parent fic, but there was so much backstory getting involved I thought a ficlet would help me think. And it did! :D
> 
> Takes place right after/during Cleo's problems with her family project. No warnings that I can see other than a broad Code Z. *hiss*

Robbi heard Oliver talking to Cleo in the lunchroom. She didn't know, really, that Mr. Gold was Henry's grandfather. Mum said that their family was small, just the two of them and Aunt Regina.

But Aunt Regina was Henry's mother, Emma was his other mother, and she had parents and a husband, Cleo was Henry's sister and then there was Neal and Ruth, and apparently Mr. Gold and Miss Belle and Oliver...that seemed like more than three people 

So when she got home she asked Mum if she was _sure_ it was just the three of them.

"Of course I am, sweet pea," Mum rolled her eyes, patting Robbi's hair. "I'm you mother, I know these things. I don't have any other family in Storybrooke, so, neither do you."

"Oh..." Robbi supposed that made sense. "Well, do I have any family on Daddy's side?"

"Mum frowned. "I said no, now don't be so silly."

Well...

That sorta made sense. If any of Robbi's father's, uh, people, were around, then they'd surely have talked to her by now. She was eight years old, practically ten.

The only people that really talked to Robbi about her dead father was...okay, well really it was just Aunt Regina. Henry said he hadn't known Daddy super-well, personally, but thought he was a very nice man. A good man.

Everybody else looked at Robbi like she was supposed to help them out if she asked a question about her father. Or said he was a hero, but that didn't really answer her questions. And she didn't know how she was supposed to help them, so she just didn't ask.

So when Aunt Regina came over one evening, (with apple turnovers Robbi tried to save the flaky corners for last even if it made the eating a little challenging,) Robbi asked her at the dinner table. It seemed like a good time. Aunt Regina was saying something about that family tree picture Cleo had been working on. She was mad about something to do with Killian saying it was wrong and Henry being upset with Emma, but Robbi couldn't quite follow. Mum said she should be quiet when grownups were talking unless she was asked a question, but Robbi thought maybe this was sorta the same thing. Only instead of answering, Robbi was doing the asking.

She waited on a break in the conversation before asking: "Aunt Regina? Do I have any family on my father's side?"

Mum's fork clattered on the plate. Aunt Regina stared at Robbi like she'd gone invisible, until Mum huffed.

"Robin Mills, stop asking that silly question. There's no one but me and your aunt in Storybrooke-"

"Now wait just a minute," Aunt Regina interrupted Mum, turning to her. She always looked at Robbi when she spoke to her. "Have we ever told you about Roland?"

Robbi had to think about that. The name was sorta familiar, it might've come up before, but she didn't have a face to put to it.

"Oh I've told her that already," Mum said quickly, though Robbi couldn't quite recall if she did or not...she might've been very little then. "Don't you remember that?"

"Um..." Mum was looking at her like the answer was supposed to be "yes" but Robbi really didn't remember. She wasn't supposed to lie, but she didn't want to upset Mum either...

"Well, Roland is your half brother," Aunt Regina said, and Robbi chose to look at her instead of Mum. "He's about four or five years older than you, he was Robin's son by his first wife, Marian."

"Like Maid Marian-Marian?" Robbi had seen the Disney movie once at school on a rainy day when the playground was too slippery. She hoped they weren't really foxes, but then, having a fox brother might be neat.

"Well...hardly a _maid_ then..."

Aunt Regina gave Mum a dirty look before turning back to Robbi. "That's right. She died, so for a long time Roland was the smallest of the Merry Men. He was a sweet boy," she smiled, sorta sadly. "He was very excited to be a big brother. He got a cardboard box and put it in one of the tents at their camp when you were born so you'd have somewhere to sleep."

That was nice of him, Robbi thought. "Did I ever get to sleep in it?"

"Absolutely not," Mum clucked. "I'd never let my daughter sleep in a box on the ground, you're not a stray cat."

Aunt Regina pursed her lips like she did when she was getting annoyed, but said nothing to Mum.

"We had to go to the Underworld to get Emma's pirate back. You..." Robbi felt tension in the air, and saw Mum and Aunt Regina were eyeing each other weirdly. "...weren't supposed to be down there, but it happened."

"It was that crooked imp Gold's fault was what it was," Mum scowled, and Robbi looked down at her plate. She shouldn't have asked questions. "He kidnapped you-"

"Because _someone_ ordered him to do it," Aunt Regina said, a clear warning in her voice that made Mum snap her mouth shut. "Which is a story for another day, unless you want to address _that_."

Mum must not want too, because she sulked in her chair, silently. Which sorta made Robbi curious, but also made her not want to know, either.

Aunt Regina was in charge again. The anger in her eyes softened, and she even smiled in a wistful sort of way that made Robbi feel like she should be quiet.

"I suppose Robin took you on your first camping trip down there," Aunt Regina murmured. "He said you slept better outside then you did under a roof, that's how he knew you were a Hood."

"But your surname is Mills to avoid confusion," Mum added, which made the almost-happy look on Aunt Regina's face turned into a frown. It deepened when Mum steered the conversation away from Daddy and Roland and family altogether, and Robbi kinda felt the same.

She wanted to know more than the vague heroism stories about her father. She wanted to know about this brother she had, and who ordered Mr. Gold to kidnap her when she was a baby, and she wanted to _know._

Maybe it made Mum upset, and that's why she didn't want to talk about it...maybe...

Robbi knew better than to ask Mum though. That made her upset and she always told Robbi those questions were silly. So about a week after that dinner, when they went to the library on a field trip at school, she saw Henry come in to drop off a stack of books.

Henry didn't make Robbi nervous. He was real nice and polite, even if he and Mum didn't like each other so much. At all. Whatever. Robbi fluttered at a distance waiting for him to finish talking to Miss Belle though. Oliver's mom was nice too, but Robbi never knew what to say to her other than "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" at the right times.

Like when she looked over and smiled and said, "Hello Robbi, can I help you with something?"

Robbi swallowed. "Uh, N-no ma'am...Hen-Henry, can I talk to you?"

"Sure," Henry came over to her and knelt down, giving her a smile that was sorta crooked on his face, like she'd seen Oliver do sometimes, too. Guess they were related, somehow. "What can I do for you?"

Henry was supposed to be real smart. He had the whole family tree figured out, so maybe he had the answers: "I have a brother, right?"

"Yes..." Henry raised his eyebrows up. "Roland Hood."

Robbi nodded. "Yeah. Aunt Regina said he was my dad's son, Marian was his mom, and I was wondering where he is now. Um, just 'cause, I guess. You and Cleo and Oliver got a big family, see, I was just wondering about...mine."

"Oh. Well that's cool." Henry smiled, and Robbi felt less fidgety. "Let's see now...now do you know about the Underworld trip?"

"Aunt Regina said it was my first camping trip."

"Ha, yeah, I guess so. Ah, but the thing was that Robin died when...we got back to Storybrooke. He died, and your mother named you in honor of him-"

"I didn't have a name when Daddy died?" Robbi frowned. She didn't know why that made her feel sad. _Upset._

Henry smiled sheepishly. "We were really crazy in trouble, there wasn't any time. And maybe the day after he died, _more_ stuff happened. Someday I'll tell you all of it, but Mr. Gold was trying to break a sleeping curse on Belle while she was pregnant with Oliver, and he...he wasn't getting a lot of help. Long story short; Everyone freaked out and some people evacuated back to the old world. The Merry Men left, and they took Roland with them. I don't...er, I wasn't in town at the time, so I don't know what happened exactly-"

"Why didn't I go with them?" Robbi blurted out.

Henry blinked.

"I-I mean I'm happy with Mum, really, I love her and stuff b-but I-Was something wrong with me? Is it because I was a girl? Why leave me behind-"

"Whoa, whoa," Henry held up his hands. "Easy, easy, easy, hold on. I think...well you...you had your mom, see? Roland only had the Merry Men left. It must've just been natural, I guess. There was absolutely nothing wrong with you, Robbi, I promise."

Robbi didn't exactly believe Henry, but she nodded like she did, anyway.

If Storybrooke was dangerous, why didn't Mum leave with the Merry Men and Roland? She and Daddy weren't married, otherwise their last name would be Hood, Robbi knew that. But they must've been in love or something if they made a baby. That's what Neal's mom said anyway, that babies were made with love. But...but...why would you keep one child and leave the other?

She _must've_ been the problem.

Robbi didn't really want to learn more about her brother after that. It was confusing, and it hurt, and she didn't know why it did. Sometimes Aunt Regina would volunteer some neat stuff; Roland had a stuffed monkey like Robbi had her stuffed fox. And he liked root beer, which Mum thought was icky and didn't let Robbi have unless it was a special occasion. And he _loved_ ice cream. But mostly Robbi kept those thoughts in a little box she refused to open.

(Though once in a while, she would peek in there and wonder if Roland ever thought about her, and their father...she didn't want to _know_ , but she could think about it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't see anyone except maybe Captain Clap being proud of how the Underworld went. That was a big failure for everyone, and as you may notice, people aren't sure how to tell Robbi, "Your father was killed because of your mother's actions, and she did something vile to conceive you even though you father loved you dearly anyway." To complicated for small children...or adults...
> 
> (Zelena did tell Robbi she had a brother...but dammit, a throwaway line to a three-year-old isn't gonna stick...especially when you never mentioned it again to keep said child to yourself.)


	19. Father's Day For Garrick...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a little Father's Day snippet of fluff! Featuring the...I dunno what to call this family, it's Garrick and his people. He's about five-ish here, it's the first summer vacation after kindergarten. Enjoy! Happy Father's Day! I'm a bit busy, but someday soon expect to see some more ficlets with the other families!

Garrick didn't have a dad.

He didn't mind. He had Tink and Grandpa. Sometimes Archie Hopper visited too, and he was real nice. And once he got into school, Garrick made some friends with nice families too. Opal had a dad, six uncles that were the other dwarves plus "Uncle Tiny" who was a smallish giant, and her mom, and now she had two baby brothers, too. Oliver's family was smaller, but plenty nice and interesting, too.

There was his mom, Belle. She was one of the nicest ladies in town, Garrick supposed, and she knew everything worth knowing. Then there was Mr. Gold, Garrick knew him first from when he came to collect the rent each month, but he was Oliver's dad now. (Well...he probably was then, too, but Garrick didn't know him then.) Grandpa did business with him sometimes, since Grandpa was a woodworker and sort of tinkerer, and Mr. Gold sold clocks. He was actually pretty nice, and his shop was cool. Oliver's parents didn't live together, he only slept Friday nights at his dad's house, but Mr. Gold was still in town. Not like Garrick's dad.

He didn't remember August Booth. (He could never call him "Dad" really...he was never there, so Garrick didn't feel guilty really.) He'd left town when Garrick was a baby, and Mom and Grandpa, (sometimes Archie,) were the only family he really knew. But he didn't mind, because they were a great family.

Just sometimes it was weird not having a father around...sometimes it was _really_ weird.

Father's Day was on a Sunday in June. Garrick hadn't known it, really, until this year when he saw Granny taping a sign to the window telling everybody about the specials she was having then. And Opal said that she and her dad were gonna bring back a to-go order instead of eat in, since her baby brothers (she had _two_ of them, born at the same time!) were fussy and teething.

"Peter cries louder than Joseph," she complained while they were on the playground in the park, hiding in the shade under the slide. "But Joseph's chewing on everything. Mommy says they'll just disturb everyone, so we're gonna eat at home."

"Papa and I always stay home," Oliver said. "We usually make breakfast and then I give him his present. Mama's not coming this year, she says she's gonna go visit with Grandpa Moe."

"You have presents on Father's Day?" Garrick asked. He didn't know that...but then, he always made a card for Mom on Mother's Day in spring, right? That made sense. "What do you give him?"

Oliver sat up a bit straighter. "I got Papa a new tie. He's got a dark blue shirt, y'know the one? The tie's the same color as that. It's got a pocket square to match."

"What's a pocket square?" Opal asked.

"It's the thingie in the pocket of his suit, here," Oliver gestured to the side of his chest. "It's like a hanky, but too fancy to use. They just look nice, I think, like a bracelet or something."

"Oh. Well. I got my daddy a coffee cup with fireflies on it."

"Why fireflies?" Garrick questioned. Opal's dad was a dwarf, he was shorter than Mama, with no hair on his head and a black-and-white beard. He was a handyman when people needed one, a janitor for the hospital, and mined fairy dust in the mines. Shouldn't he have rocks or gems or something like that on his cup instead?

Opal shrugged. "Daddy likes 'em. Mommy too. Y'know the dangly things that go over the crib? Peter and Joseph's look like fireflies, or light-up butterflies maybe. I think it's a secret between them. She said he'd like it, anyway."

"Huh...well, that's nice. I guess."

"So what do you on Father's Day?" she asked. "Or do you don't do nothing?"

"Anything." Oliver corrected. "And why you gotta ask that anyway? If you don't have a dad, there's no point in celebrating Father's Day, is there?"

Garrick kinda agreed with Oliver. He didn't have a dad. But that wasn't a bad thing...he didn't miss one...

Opal sat up on her knees, so she could put her hands on her hips. "Oh yeah? Well how come you say Henry always spends the day with you and your daddy on Father's Day? He doesn't have a dad, right?"

"Right. But Papa's his grandpa, and he's only got two moms and more grandparents."

"Isn't Hook his daddy?" Garrick asked, brushing an ant off his leg where he was sitting cross-legged on the ground. "He's Cleo's dad, right?"

"Henry says he's not. He's just Cleo's dad, but Henry hates him." Oliver explained, then thought for a moment. "Well...I guess if Papa is Henry's _grandfather_ , that counts."

"Of course it does." Opal nodded. "So Garrick can have Father's Day, since he's got a grandfather. A real nice one, too."

Oh. Garrick had never thought of it that way before. That sounded nice! Except... "But what am I supposed to give Grandpa then? Do I have to get him a tie? Or a cup?"

"Mmmm...nah." Opal shrugged. "Not unless you wanna. I think it's like Christmas, you just buy something they'll like or use. If you get stuck, you could just make a card."

"Yeah." Oliver agreed. "It's the thought that counts, Mama says."

"Just make it a _good_ thought."

"Yeah, do that."

Garrick thought about it when Mom brought him home. He asked her what she thought, and she smiled and kissed the top of his head, where his hair was blonde and fluffy and curly.

"I think that's very sweet of you." She said. "Hmm...let's see, what does Grandpa like then?"

They thought about it over dinner for a bit, before Mom had a real nice idea. They went out shopping the next day, (which was a Saturday, right before Father's Day, so they weren't late yet,) and invited Grandpa out to eat the next day after that. (Which'd be Sunday, Father's Day Sunday.) There were lots of families in Granny's Diner then, lots of families with dads in them. But Garrick didn't mind.

Mom had bought a sneaky giftbox that looked like a wrapped present but you just bought it out the store like that. She wasn't good at wrapping presents, but Garrick liked the stuff on the inside of his presents better than the outside. Although tearing through wrapping paper was fun. When Grandpa arrived and sat down with them, he looked surprised when Garrick set it in front of him.

"Happy Father's Day, Grandpa!"

For a second Garrick thought he'd done wrong. Grandpa's eyes got kinda watery, but he was still smiling as he opened up the box and pulled out the little picture frame. Mom said they could decide what picture would go in it later. One of just Garrick, one of her and Garrick, one of the three of them, whatever Grandpa wanted.

Grandpa wiped the wet stuff in his eyes with the heel of his palm, then beckoned Garrick over so he could give him a hug.

"I love it, _germoglio_ , thank you. Thank you very much."

"You're welcome." Garrick chirped, snuggling into his side.

Grandpa always smelled a little like wood, like the sawdust filling his workshop. It tickled his nose. Garrick pulled when the ticklish feeling gave way to another feeling, and he sneezed into his elbow, spraying the skin there green. It wiped off easy with a napkin, mostly, and Mom and Grandpa didn't say anything about it. They were kinda used to it, Garrick figured.

He'd have to try not doing that in the picture Grandpa would put in the frame though, he wanted that to look as perfect as he felt right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garrick genuinely does not miss August...because you can't really miss something that's never been there. Sad really. This ficlet is partially inspired by the way my family's always done Mother's/Father's Day: We have presents for both my mom/dad, and my grandmother/grandfather. Last year I made my two maternal predecessors crochet dishcloths...they love crochet dishcloths. They never use them, but, they loved them. :)
> 
> (Last year we got Dad an Ancestry DNA kit...guess who's 25% Greece/Italian through a 50% father? Moi!)


	20. Cleo's Knows Her Daddy Is...Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I freely admit that I thought Cleo was gonna be much more in the dark about what a terrible father she has. And then my muse takes these ficlets a certain way. As for warnings, we have some implied drinking and domestic...I'll say domestic disputes, because nothing gets violent. The usual background Hook jackassery at least, and something I'm describing as a mini-panic attack for Cleo but is probably more accurate as "conditioning" really. Carry on.
> 
> Pitchforks to your right, warm blankets to your left, dispense at leisure.

Cleo remembered the first time it happened, or at least, the first time she'd remembered it.

She was sitting between Henry and Mommy, watching a movie. The door opened and Daddy came in. He was stumbly and talked real loud but Cleo couldn't understand him so well, she didn't remember what he said just that Mama was trying to take him to the kitchen while Henry scooped her up and carried her to bed. And Henry said Daddy was fine, but he looked mad.

He tucked Cleo in with Ladybug, and he stayed with her until she fell asleep to his bedtime story.

She was two or three then. She was definitely three when she remembered the first time Daddy fought with Henry while he was stumbly and swearing. That time Cleo was supposed to be in bed, but she'd heard the noise and come downstairs to see what was going on. Mommy was standing between then, she looked like she was gonna cry, and she'd scooped Cleo up and took her back to bed.

Mommy said Daddy and Henry were having a disagreement. She didn't stay, but she did tuck Cleo in and give her a goodnight kiss.

Once, Cleo stayed in bed when she heard yelling in the middle of the night. She hear a loud noise, and then stomping up the stairs. Stomping down the hall. And the slam of Mommy and Daddy's door. Downstairs another door slammed, and the next morning it was just Cleo and Mommy at the table for breakfast. She didn't ask what happened because Mommy's eyes were red with and she looked tired. Cleo went to preschool that day, but Henry walked her home and Daddy ate dinner with them, so things went back to normal. At least what Cleo had thought was normal for a real long time.

She knew something was different about her family. After Cleo brought home that drawing Mrs. la Rue asked them to do, (she didn't have time to add Henry, and the picture of just her and her parents looked small and sad on green construction paper,) Henry and Daddy had a quiet fight the same week about Regina's place in their family. She was Henry's _other_ mother, kinda like Lydia's two mommies except Mommy and Regina didn't live together or hold hands. And she was part of Mommy's family anyway, _somehow_ , but Daddy argued she didn't count, and she had Zelena and Robbi.

Henry said blood didn't make a family, and Daddy banged his glass on the table and snapped, "Blood's the only reason you still live here!" Then Henry left all day, and Cleo stayed in her room until Mom told her lunch or dinner was ready. Sometimes it was easier to stay in her room because otherwise she'd just get sent up there, and Cleo hadn't thought that was too strange since she had toys and books to keep her occupied if she couldn't go out and play in the shed.

And then over the summer after kindergarten, she went on her first sleepover at Stephanie's house.

Cleo met Stephanie Briars in preschool, and they were best friends. She had pretty brown curls and lots of pretty hair bows and headbands, wore lots of pink and sometimes a plastic tiara, but she also shared Cleo's interest in bugs. They had tried bringing a butterfly inside once, but she was too quick to catch. They caught a wasp fine in the plastic cup their special ice cream snack came in, but the preschool teacher didn't like that so much. Lydia didn't like wiggly bugs as much, but she did like digging in the backyard when she joined them, so they were all good friends that way.

At the sleepover, Mrs. Briars made pancakes for dinner and let them make cookies. (The kind Mommy made, the little round ones in the yellow package from the fridge.) Phil was off on a sleepover with Neal and Tommy, and Mr. Briars wasn't home, so Lydia called it a girl's night and they settled down under a blanket tent in the den with A Bug's Life playing on the TV. (It was a perfect movie in Cleo's opinion, bugs _and_ a princess.) They were getting to the scary part with the crazy mean grasshopper tried to eat Dot, when out of nowhere, the front door opened.

Cleo felt like she couldn't move when Mr. Briars walked in.

Her tummy flipped and her hands got sticky and hot. She'd never been scared of Mr. Briars before, he was kinda handsome and kinda like a teddy bear with his brown eyes and curly hair. He smelled like horses a lot and showed them a proper sword strike with their plastic swords. He was _nice_. But coming home after dinner when it was dark out was bad. It was _always_ bad.

It meant slamming doors and Mommy's mouth getting tight and crinkles around her eyes, Daddy shouting and swearing and mumbling, someone sending Cleo to bed saying it was time for bed, and Henry getting mad, and fights downstairs and noises that made Cleo nervous if she couldn't sleep through them. She'd stopped going downstairs after she saw Daddy knock a vase over, and she liked to think that was an accident. She grabbed her ladybug and pillow, standing up to go upstairs to Stephanie's room like she was always told to do at home when her friend got up, but then Stephanie was running _to_ her father.

"Daddy!"

Mr. Briars steps were steady and he shut the door without slamming it. Mrs. Briars got up and crossed the room towards him, but she was smiling. Mr. Briars scooped up Stephanie and kissed her head, and set her down again to give his wife a peck on the cheek.

"I'm sorry it took so long," he apologized. "We had to call the vet for one of the horses, I meant to call when I was headed home."

Daddy did that sometimes. Mommy would go get him if he called, and Henry would make a face and have Cleo in bed by the time they got back. But he never ever hugged Cleo if he got home late. Actually, Mommy and Henry made sure to get her out of the way...but Mrs. Briars didn't shoo Stephanie away.

"We made cookies Daddy!"

"I see that, _mmm_ , and smell it. Are they good?"

"Yes!"

"He can't have one! Girls only!" Lydia insisted, and Cleo sat back down, hoping Mr. Briars wouldn't get mad. She didn't know _why_ he'd get mad, it just seemed like he might.

"Oh? Well, if that's how it is-" why did she feel lightheaded? "-I'm just gonna wash up and go to bed so you ladies have the room to yourself." Mr. Briars chuckled, ruffling Stephanie's hair and nudged her back to their blanket tent. "Have fun."

Stephanie and Lydia started bickering over whether or not they could let Mr. Briars have a cookie, and Mrs. Briars had gone to maybe fix his dinner, but Cleo felt stuck to the floor.

Mr. Briars wasn't stumbly or loud or mad, and Stephanie didn't get sent to bed, and Mrs. Briars didn't look sad. Nobody looked angry. Or sad. Or upset. No, Mrs. Briars looked at Cleo kind of funny and asked if she was okay. So she was the only one that was upset, and that didn't make her feel good at all. How did they know it wasn't bad for Mr. Briars to come home at night?

Cleo felt funny and Mrs. Briars brought her aside to check her temperature, and offered to call Mommy, but that made Cleo feel worse. She wasn't sick. She just felt...funny. Sweaty and dizzy, like you did after a scare on Halloween.

The rest of the sleepover went okay once Cleo sat down, squeezed her ladybug tight, and got lost in A Bug's Life with her friends. She went to sleep mostly okay, but she woke up earlier than Lydia or Stephanie when the Briars were clanking around in the kitchen making scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. Mr. Briars didn't look scary in the morning either, and he made the eggs while Mrs. Briars put the bacon to cook in the oven on little tiny racks over a pan so all the greasy stuff dripped off. It was nice, crunchy bacon like they had at Granny's, and with some peanut butter on her toast, Cleo felt like whatever happened last night was just her imagination.

Then when Mommy took her home, she found Daddy hunched over the kitchen table with red blurry eyes.

And Cleo remembered that Mr. Briars had been up early, without red eyes, and he didn't have a headache or ask her to be quiet. Cleo went upstairs to her room and saw that Henry's door was open, so she went in there instead. He was sitting on the bed with his drafting notebook, and smiled at her when she came over and climbed up on the bed.

"Hello Cleo, how was your sleepover?"

"Okay...um...d-did your daddy ever come home late?"

Henry set aside his notebook. "No...he didn't...did Mr. Briars come home like that yesterday?"

"No. He didn't. So...why does Daddy?"

Henry made a face Cleo didn't really like. He got very still, his eyes got very deep and serious and old, like Granny's could, and he tapped his fingers nervously on his pants leg. It was quiet for long enough that the clocks on the wall changed minutes almost twice before he reached over and picked Cleo up as he stood, carrying her to her room.

"You know that stuff your dad's got in that bottle in the kitchen?" he asked. "The rum? It's got something called alcohol in it, so does wine and beer actually. And when you drink too much alcohol, it makes you act like a sh-Like a stupid person. It makes you think slow and talk too much and you can't walk straight-"

"Like Daddy when he comes home late?"

"Exactly. That's called being drunk, and it can happen to anyone if they drink enough alcohol. And sometimes someone that's drunk acts like...like...like they've got this Jekyll-and-Hyde thing. I mean, they'll just act scary, really, really scary, so if you ever feel uncomfortable, you need to get away from that person as soon as you can. Okay? Even if it's your dad."

Cleo nodded. "So I stay in my room?"

Henry flipped her over her shoulder so he could flop her on the mattress like she was a heavy sack, and the bounce made her giggle so that she missed the look on his face. "Yeah. Or out the house. Just...don't stay if you're scared."

Later that night, Mommy came to tuck Cleo in by herself. Her smiles were funny and she had the Sad Eyes again, and she took Cleo's hands in hers and gave them a squeeze.

"So...Henry said you asked him questions about your father today?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you have any more questions for me? Is there anything else about it you want to talk about?"

Cleo hesitated a moment. "When Daddy breaks things...why don't you leave?" Henry had said not to stay if she was scared, right? Well, Mommy was the Savior and a deputy, maybe she wasn't scared. Heroes hardly ever got scared.

"Well, because...because Daddy needs me here. I take care of him, and he takes care of me. That's how True Love is, I won't just walk away from him when he's gotten a little loud." Mommy smiled. Cleo didn't know what to think about that. "And I know that it can be very scary when he comes home like that, but it doesn't happen too much. And when it does, no matter what, he might seem like a different person, but he's still your father and he won't hurt you. He would never hurt us."

"Never?"

"Never ever." Mommy promised, kissing her forehead.

It was hard to figure out who was telling the truth, and Cleo didn't think she could ask Daddy about it. Henry said she should leave if she got scared, and that it was right to leave the whole house when Daddy was acting like a monster. (She asked Oliver what a Jekyll-and-Hyde was, and he said it was story about a man that turned into a monster when he drank a potion, and also an old Storybrooke villain, so Daddy was a little like both if rum was a potion.) But Mommy promised Daddy would never-ever hurt them, and said he needed her there to take care of him because of True Love. Which one was true though? Because they weren't the same story at all, right?

Cleo was still trying to figure it out. When Daddy wasn't drinking and he was smiling and Mommy was smiling, it seemed like she was right. But when he fought with Henry, it seemed like he was right. Mommy had been right that Daddy stumbling home in a temper didn't happen too much. Sometimes Cleo could even forget about it.

Up until the next time it happened...but that hadn't happened in awhile. Maybe it wouldn't happen again at all. Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need an Emma Swan in a time-travelling bug over here to stop this madness with a corrective slap for Emma Jones. Stat.


	21. Oliver Is Teething...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because we need more baby!Oliver and parental!Rumbelle, right? Right. X3

While part of him was very pleased that Belle was trusting him more to be alone with the baby, (hell, part of him was just glad Jefferson counted him as a friend some days…) that didn’t mean a damned thing in the big picture. It wasn’t enough to make up for everything.

Plus, Belle had been absolutely exhausted and strung-out when he tentatively made his visit earlier in the day. It was a new thing he was trying as their son neared five months of age, making casual visits with no real aim other than to build up confidence that he wasn’t going to screw things up again.

(And then maybe someday before Oliver was old enough to attend high school, perhaps, they might be in a position to try something, like dating.)

Astrid was manning the front desk valiantly, but you were hard-pressed not to hear the wailing baby in Belle’s office. Their boy sounded horribly upset about something, and when he braved a peek, Belle didn’t look much better. She looked so very tired and didn’t seem to notice her blouse was half undone as if she were nursing Oliver but had been interrupted. Her distress made sneaking any sort of peek unappealing though.

She was worried sick about Oliver, she said. They had a doctor’s appointment this very afternoon. He wouldn’t nurse, he’d been crying and fussing for almost two whole days and nights, and if he did nurse, he tended to be…mouthy. Painfully so.

Oliver’s crying didn’t lessen once Belle handed him over, but it certainly didn’t _worsen_ either. Rumpelstiltskin gave Oliver a little bounce, trying to soothe him and Belle at the same time.

“I can keep an eye on him for a bit, if you’d like to take a rest before your appointment.”

Belle’s eyes were half-shut at just the offer, as if her mind was urging her to sleep, and she consciously wound her arms around herself, covering her breast. “You’re sure? You’re not busy or anything?”

“No, no, not at all. Should I stay here or-”

“Oh you don’t have to, it’s okay,” Belle went to wave her hand dismissively, but stopped and held her shirtfront together again. “It doesn’t matter where he goes, he’s just…it’s like he’s furious everywhere, maybe the pawnshop will be different, I guess? God…I don’t know, I’m tired. And worried. And tired of worrying.”

Rumpelstiltskin recalled the many, many sleepless nights in Bae’s infancy. As the Dark One, he didn’t need sleep. Maybe he should remind Belle of that in the future, but for now, he chose to think on how best to help in the present.

“I’ll take him across the street, give you a bit of quiet. What time is the appointment?”

“Um…three? Three-thirty?”

“I’ll come back at a quarter to three, yes?”

“Alright…” Belle bit her lip, leaning over to kiss Oliver’s sweet, downy head. “Mama’s going to have a little nap Oliver, you be nice to your papa.”

(He was too busy bawling to acknowledge he’d heard, but then, he was a baby anyway.)

Rumpelstiltskin cooed sympathetically at their little red-faced lad, stroking his chin comfortingly. “Poor lad. Something not quite agreeing with you?”

“Maybe he’s colicky, I dunno. This is…new.” Belle sighed, scrubbing at her face.

Although he was about to say something, Rumpelstiltskin quite forgot what it was when Oliver started gnawing on his finger as best he could with his slippery pink gums. Actually, he had some pretty decent force there…hmm…

A hazy memory appeared, then. Bae had started teething early, enough that he didn’t take to solids or sheep’s milk very well when Milah refused to nurse him anymore. Because he was mouthy, and she was tired of having to sit at all hours of the day with him at her breast, unable to walk away should Rumpelstiltskin enter the room.

“Let me see your mouth there, son,” Rumpelstiltskin requested, peeking as best he could inside Oliver’s mouth. “Hmm…aha.”

“What?” Belle stood on her toes, craning her neck. “What is it? Does he have something wrong with his throat?”

“No, no, not his throat, it’s his teeth.”

“He doesn’t _have_ teeth.”

“Well he’s about to, see there on the bottom gums? Bae started teething early too, when’s the normal time for this sort of thing to start?”

“My books say about six months,” Belle said, pausing a moment. “You think that’s it? He’s teething early?”

“It’s certainly the least concerning possibility,” Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. “I don’t think seeing the doctor would hurt, but in the meantime I could give him something to mouth on.”

“Teething…” Belle smiled, and for one sweet moment she let her head fall on his shoulder, one arm wrapping around his waist. “Oh god, that would be wonderfully simple.”

“Y-yes…” Rumpelstiltskin nodded in agreement. Belle was leaning on him. Belle was half hugging him. What was he supposed to do?

Too soon, Belle stepped back, rubbing her eyes. “I think…I think I still need to take that nap, if you don’t mind.” She yawned widely, and slapped a hand over her mouth as she blushed furiously.

She was _lovely_ , and Rumpelstiltskin just stammered out some appropriate reply before heading across the street to the pawnshop where a crying babe wouldn’t be a bother to anyone.

Bae had liked chewing on the carved wooden toys Rumpelstiltskin had made for him, but a magicked-up trio of plastic keys on a ring seemed to suit Oliver’s fancy just fine. He’d stuck them in the freezer for a bit so they were chilled when Oliver went to gumming on them, and it did certainly seem to help. If nothing else, it quieted him down.

Jefferson came by at around two for something, and poked his head in the back to find Oliver sitting there on Rumpelstiltskin’s lap, chewing away to his wee heart’s content.

“So is it Friday, or did I miss a memo?” The former hatter asked, stepping into the back room.

Rumpelstiltskin gave a short explanation of the situation. Jefferson was a father  himself. He should well-remember the pains of teething for the whole family, and judging by the little hissing sound he made, he did. Quite well.

“Poor little Gracie’s teeth kept her awake for days,” Jefferson tutted. “At least you don’t need sleep.”

“Something I think I should point out to Belle, just in case some more difficulties rear their head,” Rumpelstiltskin nodded.

“That must be handy.” Jefferson hummed, sitting down uninvited on a nearby table. “Not needing sleep. I’m really not sure how new parents do it, and I was one. You just end up functioning on like an hour’s worth of sleep and whatever you can catch between their naps. It’s madness.”

“Utter madness.”

“And plus, I mean, it can’t hurt, right?” Jefferson winked. “You know what they say, right?”

If this was some sort of innuendo that jumped from sleeping to sleeping with someone, or something, Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t make said jump. He wondered if he should cover Oliver’s ears as the former hatter’s eyebrows wiggled.

“What do they say?”

“That ladies _love_ men that are good with kids.”

Rumpelstiltskin rolled his eyes. “Please. Gratitude is more like it, and I’m only good with my own children. Other people’s offspring are…theirs.”

Jefferson merely shrugged, sliding off the bench to waltz out the room. “Hey. Sure man. But just remember, it’s Belle’s kid you’re holding there too!”

Oh yes, _that_ was something he needed to think about while standing around in a waiting room with her and the baby in question. Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t sure, exactly, how he’d been invited, but he wasn’t complaining. Sure, the pediatrician did a double-take, but that was his problem. Or it would be if he came up with a more complicated diagnosis…

Fortunately, the doctor declared it _was_ teething after all. He gave Belle some suggestions and answered questions, and then the next thing Rumpelstiltskin knew, he was standing outside the door of Belle’s apartment holding Oliver while she unlocked the door, thanking him in a nervous, scattered fashion he’d come to learn meant she wasn’t really nervous, just uncertain of what came next as she took the baby carrier back. He decided to leave on a good note, left her Oliver’s new keys, and was pleased to receive a daring peck on the cheek.

“Thank you.” Belle said softly.

“Ach…it was just a lucky guess…”

“No, um, I mean…thank you for helping, for everything, you didn’t have to.”

“Of course I did. He’s our son.” The words popped out before he could stop them, and oh god, Belle looked like she was going to burst into tears. “I mean…um-”

“Yeah, yeah he is.” Belle smiled bravely then. “So…thanks anyway?”

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed, putting on a smile he hoped matched hers in bravery, (though privately doubted it,) and walked away before the moment could be spoiled. Oliver was teething and that meant some new changes, it meant their baby was growing. Today he was just under five months old. Soon enough he’d be heading to school, making friends, growing like a weed…

Maybe he and Belle _could_ reach some personal milestones and be there, united, for their son before they missed too many of his own. That would be…that would be lovely.  



	22. Henry Supervises Trick-or-Treating...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real drama, mostly fluff from Henry's POV. This takes just over a year before the Black Cauldron, so the kids are all a year younger, Rumple's got good mental health, he and Belle are separated, and Henry's already moved out of his mothers' houses.

Hook was down for the count with a case of food poisoning that Henry almost felt sorry for. (Almost.) Unfortunately, that meant this year Emma had to help David keep any Halloween tricksters in line around town, and there was always a fair few. Plus two or three young jackasses staked out in the graveyard trying to conjure something up. Henry could honestly say he had never been interested in raising the dead, that was just icky, so he didn't understand why every year, at least one person wound up in the graveyard at midnight. Necromancy aside, there was one issue with Emma working on Halloween night: She couldn't take Cleo trick-or-treating.

Henry had been moved out of the house for two months now, give or take a week. He and Emma were just starting to get back on speaking terms, but by unspoken agreement, they always came together for Cleo. Their first few attempts to ease back into a good relationship involved going to the park or out to Any Given Sundae with Cleo along because she missed Henry not being around, too, which was primarily why Henry volunteered to supervise his baby sis before remembering he had to walk Oliver and Opal that same night.

Emma hadn't forgotten, and she was slightly hesitant to agree to Henry's offer for this reason.

For reasons unknown, Cleo Jones had taken a shine to Oliver Gold. She thought of him as the smartest kid in school, looked to him for the occasional bit of advice, and she thought Opal was really cool, too. Emma didn't necessarily have a problem with these older children. Her problem was that Hook had a problem with the son of his self-chosen "arch nemesis", Gold, and he never missed a chance to harp on Oliver being Dark One spawn. (Sometimes Henry wondered if he should remind Hook that Cleo was the children of _two_ former Dark Ones...) So Emma tried to keep mentioning Oliver to a minimum, which Henry was starting to think was its own kind of problematic.

"I guess..." Emma hesitantly began, after talking over some points with Henry over the phone when he made his offer. "I guess it'll be alright. I mean, you're there, I trust you to keep any Lord of the Flies situations under control...alright. Yeah. You can take her. Just make sure she doesn't try tossing out the gross candy on people's lawns while you're walking, I caught her doing that with Laffy Taffy last year. And give me a call when you're done, I'll meet you at Granny's later on."

"Watch for littering, and meet you at Granny's. Got it. You know it's pretty standard I get a cut of Oliver and Opal's haul, right?"

"Oh no you don't. My child, my candy tax." Emma said with mock-warning. "Um, and do me one more favor? I know you're going to go by Gold's place, but could you maybe keep Cleo from going inside? I don't...I don't need that at the moment, please?"

Henry wasn't entirely sure what "that" was, but he agreed with the condition of a restroom break or first-aid situation. He counted it a victory that Emma hadn't banned them from going to Gold's at all. Sure, it was a good thing that she was, in small ways, recognizing that Gold wasn't the big bad Dark One brooding over town-domination plans or whatever. But tonight it was just as important that he gave out king-sized candy bars to anyone brave enough to knock on the door. Henry had been the first kid to discover that when he was about eight and begged Regina to let him go to Mr. Gold's house because nobody at school did and he wanted to prove he was brave.

A bit ironic he was his grandfather's first trick-or-treater, in hindsight.

It was arranged that everybody Henry was in charge of would meet at the library. Leroy and Astrid would drop Opal off and take Peter and Joseph themselves. For such little guys, they were big handfuls, and had a habit of running to get to the next house faster if they could squeeze by. Oliver said something about them being salt and pepper this year, if Henry was remembering that correctly. He crossed the street just as Emma was pulling up to the curb, and grinned at the sight of Cleo's costume as she jumped out the car.

Her dress was one of those off-the-rack Disney Princess dresses, yellow and sparkly because Cleo was a big proponent of yellow and sparkly, regardless of the corresponding princess. Rather than a crown, though, Cleo was wearing her plastic knight helmet and a belt for her foam sword, and you could see her light-up sneakers flashing pink and white from across the road.

"She can fight dragons now," Emma said by way of explanation, leaning out the window of the Bug as Henry arrived. "She was worried about being carried off to a tower somewhere without her sword, being a princess and all."

"And I can see in the dark!" Cleo chirped, stamping her feet to make her sneakers blink.

"That too." Emma smiled, amused. "I've got to go now, so have fun. Don't eat too much candy while you're walking, and don't toss what you don't want. And stay with your brother!"

"Okay!" Cleo grinned, and immediately dashed through the library doors, Henry-less. With a quick goodbye and wave, Emma pulled away from the curb and Henry went after Sir-Princess Cleo.

Inside the library, Oliver was dressed in a loose shirt and pants with colorful patches sewn here and there, leather gardening gloves, and a pointed hat with bits of straw glued to the brim. A classic scarecrow. Belle was applying orange paint in a triangular manner to Oliver's nose for an extra touch, while also admiring Cleo's costume with genuine delight, no doubt impressed by the alterations to the Disney interpretation of her yellow gown. She probably wholly approved of the sword, and she was nothing if not well-known for her fine taste in footwear.

Belle did not usually take Oliver trick-or-treating, she usually sent him off with either Henry, or the parents of one of Oliver's friends. Most people assumed this was because Belle always volunteered to help with Granny's Halloween party over at the diner, but there was another reason Henry had deduced all by himself.

If she let it get out that she was taking her child, _one child_ , trick-or-treating, she ended up with a half-dozen kids she barely knew under her supervision. If Belle claimed she was occupied, then she could send Oliver off knowing he'd still have a good time. It sucked, in Henry's opinion, that they didn't respect Belle's right to say "no" and what sucked more was that Gold could never take Oliver trick-or-treating without the candy-givers freaking out that the Dark One and his child were at the door.

Fortunately, Oliver never seemed to notice. Or mind, perhaps, was more like it.

Not too long after Cleo made herself at home in Belle's swiveling desk chair, and Oliver's face paint was complete, Peter and Joseph flew in and tackled Belle with a double hug. "Trickatree!"

"Ahh! Hello boys!" Belle giggled, very nearly being thrown to the floor. "Happy Halloween!"

"Guess what we are! Guess! Guess!" Peter was the first to jump back so Belle could see his costume, a white sweatshirt clearly labelled SALT in blocky letters across the front. He wore a gray beanie hat with three black holes on the top, to resemble the cap. Joseph was dressed the same, but with a gray sweatshirt marked PEPPER, instead. After a whole three seconds, Joseph blurted out, "We're salt and pepper!"

"So you are! What nice costumes! How about I give you your first piece of candy for the evening, hmm?" Belle rose from the floor and went over to the candy dish on her desk, and the twins went running to Astrid for their trick-or-treating bags.

There was a chance that they'd cross paths with Garrick later in the night, and Henry didn't know what the boy was dressed as, but it was mildly obvious that Opal was Princess Leia. She got bonus points for going with the Endor Rebel costume in Henry's book. Her green poncho flapped behind her as she shot through the library doors, her black boots clapping on the floor and a plastic blaster in one hand, followed by a salt and pepper shaker.

"Hey Oli!" Opal walked up, swinging a plastic blaster in one hand. "Did they let you out the field early 'cause it's a holiday?"

"Ha-ha, princess." Oliver stuck his tongue out.

Cleo tilted her head. "You don't look like a princess. You aren't even wearing a dress."

"I don't need a stinking dress." Opal puffed herself up, looking as regal as possible in a green poncho and helmet. She got extra points for creativity in Henry's book by choosing the Endor Rebel costume rather than the standard A New Hope white dress and hair buns. "I'm Princess Leia, I've got Rebels to lead. But you look pretty neat for a lady-knight, too. Nice helmet."

That made Cleo grin as bright as her shoes, which she hopped out of the chair to show off promptly.

Once Belle gave the twins their sweets, she started snapping pictures with her cellphone. Henry had never thought of it until he'd moved in and saw pictures scattered around the house, but Belle must've thoroughly documented things for Gold, even when they were on the outs. Parties Gold wasn't invited too, Christmas mornings, Halloween costumes, field trips, trips to the park. It was...sweet, even if they were going on three years of a very big out that Henry was starting to think was going to be permanent if somebody didn't talk to the other somebody soon.

Maybe Henry was projecting since he had, like, less than a week of time spent with his dad, but exchanging pictures so nobody felt left out was still a nice gesture.

It gave him the idea to snap some pictures with his own phone as they went along, once they left the library. Emma usually enjoyed taking Cleo out on Halloween, and it wasn't like Hook _purposely_ got food poisoning to keep her from going this year. (Nobody got food poisoning on purpose.) So he snapped pictures here and there, under street lamps, and once in front of a nice display of foam tombstones when they met up with Garrick and his mom at the Brickley house.

Naturally Tink stepped aside to take some pictures with Henry in there too, because really, just because he was supervising didn't mean he couldn't play along too.

Henry didn't quite get what Garrick was supposed to be. He was wearing a red hat, an orange scarf, a yellow shirt, green coat, and blue jeans, and purple shoes. Hmm. Well if he was a fashion nightmare, then he'd nailed it. Tink flashed them a plastic badge and declared she was an undercover cop...which was brilliant and Henry wished he'd thought of it.

They started talking politely, discussing where they'd been and who had what candy, and he let his feet guide them along until he noticed the houses were getting bigger and nicer and they were on Gold's street.

Since his was the last on the block, on the edge of town with the woods extending beyond his backyard, Oliver proposed racing down there and starting on that end of the street. For the first time that night, even at the house with a scarecrow set up on the porch, Cleo looked a little nervous.

"Mary says that Mr. Gold turns kids into frogs if they knock on his door," she said, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Does he do that on Halloween?"

"You ring the doorbell on Halloween," Garrick said, as if that were the only obvious solution. "We've never been frogged before doing that."

"That's because Papa doesn't turn people into frogs for knocking on the door." Oliver rolled his eyes. "Besides, it's Halloween law; If you leave the light on, you have to expect trick-or-treaters, and Papa always leaves the light on until about eight-thirty. So, he has to open up and give out candy to anybody who rings the bell, or knocks, until then."

Cleo still didn't look convinced. Henry didn't want to pressure his little sister, because that was just a dick move. She was six, but she knew her young mind, if she didn't want to go, Henry wouldn't make her go. Simple.

"Oli's right." Opal said then, nodding her head. "Uncle Sleepy nodded off one year with the porch light on, and he woke up to rotten eggs splattered on the house and toilet paper all over the place. It's the rules. I say we go to Gold's house first because he had king-sized candy bars."

Ever-so-slightly, Cleo perked up. "He does?"

"Uh-huh. He says anybody brave enough to come to his door deserves a reward for it. Uncle Happy gives out full-sized Hershey's bars, but Mr. Gold hands out, like Butterfingers and Snickers, or whatever kinds he bought."

Henry dearly hoped he wasn't compromising his principles when he nudged Cleo. "I think it's Reese's cups and Kit Kats this year..."

Superman had kryptonite. Achilles his heel. Cleo Jones' weakness was peanut butter, in all its many forms. "We can try...if the light's on. I guess..." she hesitated only a second more. "But I'm not knocking on the door."

Garrick bounced on the toes of his purple shoes. "I told you we ring the doorbell Cleo, c'mon! Let's go!"

"Hey! I said Papa doesn't turn kids into frogs Garrick, period!" Oliver held onto his hat as the three older kids shot down the sidewalk. Cleo held back only a second before looking up to Henry.

"Can Mommy undo me if I get frogged?"

Tink smiled, patting Cleo's shoulder. "I'm right here sweetheart, I can do it before we even leave the yard if it comes to that. I'm a fairy, remember?"

That seemed to make up Cleo's mind for her, and she scurried to catch up with the older kids. The lights of her shoes made it easier to track their progress as Henry and Tink followed after them.

"I always thought Gold preferred snails to frogs," she hummed. "Wonder how that rumor got started?"

Henry rolled his eyes. "That's not helping. But thank you for not telling Cleo that, jeez."

"Happy to help." Tink snickered. "Seriously though, it's nice to see that the Charming courage wasn't completely washed out with the rum-soaked genes of her father, poor mite. I mean I wouldn't say it's wise to running into a dragon's cave for sweets, but at least she isn't going to let a rumor get in the way."

Yeah, fair enough. They picked up the pace a bit just in time to see the front door open up and Gold step out on the porch with a bowl in his hands, and a smile on his face. Cleo was in the back, and Henry wasn't entirely sure you could see her over Oliver's conical hat.

"Trick or treat!"

"Well, well, let's see who's at my door now..." Gold hummed. "Let's see, let's see. There's my son the scarecrow. And a rebel princess, I do believe. And...ah..." he paused a moment, staring blankly at Garrick's colorful costume. "A rainbow?"

"See?" Garrick crowed. "He gets it!"

"Mmhmm...well. And..." he paused again, squinting at Cleo in the yellowish light on the porch. "We have a lady-knight I am unfamiliar with..."

"Cleo's mom had to work tonight," Oliver explained. "She's with us."

"Aha...of course. Well, you've certainly a smart costume there. Lovely shoes."

Cleo hesitated a moment. "R-really?"

"Oh yes. They're quite memorable. Every story needs a memorable detail, particularly for a lady-knight. Now," Gold shook the bowl. "D'you have a favorite sweet Miss Jones?"

"I like Reese's...please."

Gold dropped three bright orange packages into her bag, which made her almost take a step back. Three assorted pieces went into the other bags, and Gold picked up a Kit Kat bar and held it out to Cleo.

"This would be for your brother. Have a nice night."

Cleo squeaked out a thank you, more happily than frightened, and flashed down the driveway straight into Henry's arms. Garrick and Opal left with "thank you" and "Happy Halloween", while Oliver stayed behind a second longer, fishing something that was probably dark chocolate out of his candy bag to give to his father, and grabbing a fast hug.

"He did give me big candy bars Henry! Look! Look!" Cleo wriggled as Henry scooped her up off her light-up feet. "And he liked my shoes, he said they're real memorable for a lady-knight. He didn't turn me into a frog or nothing!"

Henry grinned, scooping her up off her light-up feet. "That's great!"

"I'm gonna tell Stephanie and Lydia! Full-sized candy bars!" Cleo wriggled. "They're never gonna believe me! He was real nice too!"

"That's a good idea," Tink snickered. "You do tell them everything. Maybe next year there'll be a mob of goblins at Mr. Gold's door, and I'll come back with a camera."

That would be a sight, wouldn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Opal's costume is based on this look, https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/3c/98/2e/3c982ea3b82bb74e1ab95c50263fff59.jpg , because she didn't want to wear a dress but still wanted to be Princess Leia.


	23. Rumple Has A Nightmare...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As part of my writer's block efforts, Anon suggested: The Unresolved prompt- Rumple decides to give himself a chance and go to the festival but drunk Hook is there too... trouble follows!
> 
> And it sorta did...like a lot.

On a normal Heritage Day Festival, Rumpelstiltskin would attend mainly because Oliver loved going with him, and because someone needed to keep him from underfoot while Belle was managing the library’s bake sale. And it was usually…nice. There were plenty of people that eyed him with caution, some that made a point of moving very far out of his way when they saw him, but for the most part, Rumpelstiltskin was just another face in the crowd. Another father out with his son, just another family attending the festival.

He hadn’t wanted to go this year because he felt he wouldn’t be able to handle it.

There was always one hiccup, every year, sometimes just a slight inconvenience and sometimes a minor disaster. Growing intensely uncomfortable at the sight of Oliver looking at some cornhusk dolls was an inconvenience, (Hopper would later call it a _trigger_ , but he’d recovered to enjoy the rest of the day,) and the one year Emma tried to convince them to go home after some idiots drunk off the free ales had demanded he be thrown out was…well that was the biggest disaster, and no one was hurt because of it.

But this year was after the Black Cauldron, after a suicide attempt, after a string of other chaotic things after the suicide attempt…hiccups weren’t so easy to ignore when you’d been dealing with one every other week.

Rumpelstiltskin didn’t think he could handle one this year. Just thinking about crossing paths with the Charming family had his stomach knotting with dread, the very idea of catching a cruel whispered piece of gossip behind his back made him ill. That Oliver might be subjected to the same, and he’d make it worse because he was standing there with his son…

No.

Not this year.

But that didn’t explain how he’d ended up here, walking down the bustling street lined with tents and stalls beside his son.

It was midday, the weak winter sun shining as brightly as it could. Oliver had one of those beef pasties in his hands that he had to have every year, and was getting big enough to polish off all by himself without having to share it with his papa. The scents of other concoctions filled the cold air, a sharp breeze went almost entirely unnoticed by the excitement burning in the patrons, some vendors going as far as to shout the quality of their goods like in the old marketplaces Rumpelstiltskin had once tried selling skiens of wool and thread in.

Maybe it was a good idea to have come after all, Rumpelstiltskin smiled to himself.

It became difficult to judge time spent in the middle of the festival, but eventually they came to the street corner where the library stood. Belle had her tables set out, some of the baked goods noticeably depleted from this morning, and Oliver bounded up to show her some blue yarn. It was a wonderful match for her eyes. Those lovely blue eyes that looked up to meet his, her soft lips turning up in a sweet smile that had Rumpelstiltskin looking over his shoulder, at first, to see if there was someone else there.

He heard her laugh and turned back around to see her shaking her head, making a discreet ‘come here,’ sign as Oliver’s attention was held solely by the little tarts Grace had likely baked. She’d promised to show him how to bake them someday, but until then Oliver settled for picking out a cherry tartlet to eat. He’d never needed any help finishing those, mind you, and _why on earth_ was Rumpelstiltskin thinking of pastry when Belle was inviting him over?

He started heading over as fast as he could while still maintaining some kind of dignity. If he’d had magic, he probably would’ve poofed to her side though. When he reached the table, Oliver had his tartlet and Belle had pulled money from her own pocket to slip into their cashbox. She reached across the table to Rumpelstiltskin then, brushing her delicate fingers over his hand all too briefly before coming around the table.

Rumpelstiltskin was nothing short of confused when she tucked herself against his left side, winding her arms around his left arm and letting her head rest on his shoulder as Oliver stood on his right side, nibbling at the crust of his prize.

Confused…but…but very happy. The sweet scent of her shampoo tickled his nose when he leaned down, nuzzling her crown, feeling the contrast of her silky hair and her warm forehead. The smell lingered in his head even as she turned away, still wound around his arm, and his eyes had fluttered shut against his will.

He wished he hadn’t opened them.

The bright festival had vanished, replaced by the stark winter woods. Another set of arms grabbed Rumpelstiltskin’s right, his cane dropping with a muffled thud in the deep snow. He turned wildly to look at Belle, but she was gone. Replaced by a tall, shadowy figure who’s hold was less affectionate, more restraining, like the assailant on his right.

“What are you going to do now, Crocodile?” Hook appeared suddenly, standing before him in the snow. A vicious smirk was on his face and pure hate burned in his blue eyes. “No powers, no aid, nothing. Who will save you now? Who would want to save you now?”

Rumpelstiltskin’s head spun. He saw Hook raise a gun, pointed directly at him, where the shadowy figures held him fast. It was worse than trying to shield Oliver before, because now he coul-

“Oliver? Oliver?! Belle?!”

“Stop your whining, Crocodile,” Hook sneered, pointing the gun in a different direction, showing Belle and Oliver slumped against each other, against the wishing well. “Your little family is right over there.”

“Let them go,” Rumpelstiltskin pulled against his captors, struggling more and more with each passing second. “Let them go!”

Hook laughed. “No. When you’re roasting in hell, parted forever from your precious wife and child, I want you to remember that there was nothing you could do to save them, and that you’re rotting somewhere you deserve to be.”

“No, no, don’t hurt them, no, no-NO!”

The gunshot rang in Rumpelstiltskin’s ears, the phantom ache in his head translating to a swimming sense of nausea as he bolted upright in the bed. Cold sweat soaked his pajamas and his heart pounded against his ribs.

A nightmare.

It was…a nightmare.

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed nothing, his mouth dry as he groped for his cane. His guts were roiling in his belly, and his stumbling to the bathroom only made him feel sicker. He ended up dropping on his knees, slumping over the bathtub as he emptied his stomach. When there was nothing left, he dry heaved, throat raw and sore and burning with acid.

How long he lay there with shaking limbs and a horrible smell watering his eyes, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that by the time he managed to wipe his mouth and sit on the toilet lid, he was crying in earnest. Early this evening, he’d had dinner with Oliver and Belle, and it had gone so well. _He_ was _doing_ so well.

Even if Hook showing up and shooting him in the middle of the woods was the kind of worst case scenerio up there with alien invaders, there was still a too-real possibility that the fucking pirate would do something. Rumpelstiltskin’s very presence aggravated the man, there was a terrifying chance that Hook could and would show up, more drunk than sober probably, spoiling for a fight with him. And he probably wasn’t alone. Even Moe French showing up and shooting his worhtless mouth off would make Rumpelstiltskin want to lock himself in his house for the rest of March.

It was pathetic, and cowardly, and Rumpelstiltskin couldn’t remember any of the breathing exercises he thought he knew by heart now. He just couldn’t go, especially not now with the images of this nightmare so fresh in his mind. So fresh it blotted out the brief feeling of bliss he’d gotten from standing with his wife and child, even in a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will blessedly tie in to a spot I was rather unhappy with in the main fic, so, whoever you are Anon, thank you! But it goes here for now because I'm not ready to add in future ficlets.


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